“All players suck nowadays” – Antonio Cassano bows out of football gracefully

Antonio Cassano has always been a loud man who tends to talk before he thinks

Prior to Euro 2012 he was asked to respond to claims that there might be members of the Italy national team who are gay, by saying: "Queers in the national team? That's their business. But I hope not." He later apologised, presumably under duress, by saying that homophobia is a not a view that he shares, though he refused to add whether it's one that he propagates. Aside from the casual homophobia, Cassano had quite the penchant for retiring and returning to football, only to retire again, and return once more. The 36-year-old had recently begun training with Serie A side Virtus Entella, before announcing another retirement last week. This time, he claims, it is for real. Retirement or not, this is Antonio Cassano, so he was never going to go gently into that good night. Rather, he was always more likely to go loudly, being dragged away by someone trying to prevent him from saying something stupid. In an interview conducted with Italian media this weekend, Cassano went all Frank Costanza at Festivus and went about airing some grievances. Here are the highlights. On Juventus, he said: "It's the strongest team ever in Italy and one of the best in Europe but it's not for me." On Francesco Totti: "The strongest Italian footballer in history together with Baggio and Maldini." On modern football: "Football was better in 1999. All players suck nowadays. They're a bunch of losers. Remove Juventus in Serie A and Higuain playing in Milan, find me a champion." So there we have it. Football is crap now. You can stick your Messis and Ronaldos, we'd much rather have the man who scored 125 goals in 458 career appearances.