It’s sometimes easy to forget that footballers are people just like the rest of us, they have families and friends and many other things that will tie them to an area.
For most of us the idea of moving abroad would be a scary one, yet most footballers these days will travel the world and play in different countries throughout their career.
It’s not a bad thing if someone wants to stay in their country, but you can also understand that they may have some regrets at the end of their career too.
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Sport Witness have reported on some comments from former Italian defender Allesandro Calori, and it sounds like he had the chance to sign for Celtic at some point:
“I would have liked to have an experience abroad and I had an offer from Celtic, of Glasgow, but I refused because we were doing very well in Udine. Today I have some regrets, an adventure abroad would have enriched me culturally, I hope to be able to do it as a coach.”
He had a solid if unspectacular career and the bulk of it was spent with Udinese. He left there in 1999, so clearly this offer from Celtic came at least 20 years ago.
It sounds like his main achievement was scoring a winning goal against Juventus which stopped them winning the league one year.
He’s since retired and has bounced around plenty of lower league clubs in a nomadic managerial career, so it’s possible he’s now having to look abroad after exhausting all opportunities in Italy.
We will never know what kind of impact he could’ve made at Celtic Park, but it’s clear that he still regrets not taking the chance to sign for the club.
