By Chris Wright
After missing the entire 1993/94 season with a chronic ankle injury, Milan leggenda Marco van Basten was coerced into ruling himself out Holland’s ’94 World Cup squad that summer and was eventually forced to admit defeat in his bid to recover following several surgeries – officially announcing his retirement from the game (aged just 28) on August 17th, 1995 after spending another year in fruitless rehabilitation.
The Dutch artisan was paraded around the pitch at the San Siro one last time shortly after, which proved to be an occasion so emotionally weighted that it even cracked the stoic, paving-slab face of one Fabio Capello…
http://youtu.be/vVzSQuItOhM
And it would surely be remiss to mention the great Van Basten without a little reminder of his genius…
Video shamelessly nabbed from @James_Dart