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Long-time "Milan" defender improved the record of "Serie A" matches played in the weekend Italian championship, surpassing the legendary Italian national team goalkeeper Dino Zoff.
37-year-old P.Maldini, who made his debut in the Italian championship 20 years ago in a match against "Udinese" on January 20, played his 570th match in "Serie A" last week and equalled the record held by Dino Zoff, who represented clubs such as "Udinese", "Napoli", "Mantova", and "Juventus" for two decades working as a coach and in other football-related roles.
P. Maldini, who spent his entire career at "Milan", took to the field on Sunday in the match against "Treviso", marking his 801st game wearing the red and black shirt and his record-breaking 571st in the Italian championship. The tireless footballer promised to play for a couple more years and also announced an interesting news - the grandson of another legendary player and coach, Cesare Maldini, Paolo's son Christian, is starting the third family generation at the Milan club.
"I think I don't look too bad for my age," - smiled the Italian after the record-breaking match - "Mentally, I still feel young, although my knees don't, but I hope to play until the end of my contract in 2007. By the way, I can proudly say that my son Christian is starting to train in "Milan" children's team."
The match against "Treviso" was historic and the team's striker, Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko, who scored his 150th goal for the club, equalled Jose Altafini in this statistic. In the list of all-time top scorers of "Milan", Gunnar Nordahl leads with 221 goals, followed by Gianni Rivera with 164 goals.
