Caldara announces retirement and recalls devastating Milan tenure: “My knee was shattered”

The former AC Milan defender Mattia Caldara has announced his retirement from football, following many years of injury problems and mental health challenges. 

Caldara burst onto the Serie A scene with Atalanta in the 2016-17 season. Not only did he do a good job of preventing goals, he also had a knack for getting forward and scoring them himself. Juventus were quick to secure his services in January that season, leaving him for one and a half seasons.

The Juventus stint was short-lived, however, as Milan struck an agreement with the Bianconeri in the infamous swap that saw Leonardo Bonucci move back to Turin. That is when the injury struggles really started to take off.

After struggling with a muscle injury, Caldara ruptured his Achilles tendon and was out for 21 games. Then, when it finally seemed like he was back, he tore his ACL in training and missed

the remainder of the season. Zero league appearances in his first season with the Rossoneri, followed by many loan spells before he officially left the club in the summer of 2024.

Long and heartfelt message

In an open letter, as relayed by Gianluca Di Marzio and Football Italia, the 31-year-old Caldara announced his decision to retire and touched on the difficulties he has experienced over the years. He also said that the move to Milan was his ‘great opportunity’.

“Dear football, I bid you farewell, I have decided to call it a day.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Neither is it writing this. I keep re-reading these words. Maybe it’s a way of accepting it a little more.

”I’ve found some peace now, but it took me a while to make this decision. It all started in July after a visit to a specialist: ‘Mattia, you no longer have any cartilage in your ankle. If you continue, we’ll have to put a prosthetic on you in a few years’ time’. My body has betrayed me. This time, maybe definitively.”

“I arrived at Milan. It was my great opportunity. Those colours held all my hopes. October, a training session like any other. I was running, suddenly with a sensation I’d never felt before, as if someone had shot me in the tendon. I thought someone had stepped on my ankle.

“I turned to look: there was no one there. I remember Maldini’s face as I was on the treatment table. I could see the disappointment on his face: I understood everything. Months of recovery, and in March, I was ready to take the field. I returned in the Coppa Italia against Lazio.

“Then, I was ready for my league debut. Musacchio was suspended, so it would be my turn. I was going to play in Serie A again, finally. How I had waited for that moment. I felt good. I felt good even in that Thursday training session. I had waited for that moment for a year, but It was all over in a few seconds.

“I have that image in my head. Borini falls on my knee. ‘Crack’. I got up to run again, but as soon as I put my foot down, I collapsed to the ground. My leg wouldn’t support me, my knee was shattered. A sound, a second, an instant. My soul was devastated. Something had changed in me.

“I recovered from the tendon injury, but my knee was different. I felt it. I’ll never be the same again. A page in my life had closed forever. I didn’t know it yet. In that week, my life changed. Changed forever. My mind wasn’t ready to bear the consequences.”