FRANCESCO TOLDO
1
country: Italy
born in: Padova
on: December 2 1971
position: Goalkeeper
height: 196 cm
weight: 90 kg
A goalkeeper of extraordinary skill, Francesco Toldo is highly reactive between the posts and displays supreme confidence when coming out to meet high balls. .. Toldo 'grew up', in the footballing sense, in AC Milan's youth sector Between the ages of 19 and 23, he went from playing in the Serie C2 (with Trento) to the Serie A (with Fiorentina) in just four seasons; During his career he has always worked under exceptional coaches - Alberto Cavasin, Francesco Guidolin, Claudio Ranieri, Alberto Malesani, Giovanni Trapattoni, Fatih Terim, Hector Cuper, Alberto Zaccheroni and Roberto Mancini. At international level, Toldo made his debut for the Azzurri in Croatia v Italy on 8 October 1995. He came on for Luca Bucci, who was red-carded ten minutes into the match after replacing the injured Angelo Peruzzi in the starting line-up. The match finished 1-1 and Toldo was among the best players on the field. Several years later in June 2000, with just one week until the start of Euro 2000 in Holland and Belgium, Gianluigi Buffon broke his hand. Francesco Toldo took over as number one keeper for the Azzurri and proved to be a world class player with his penalty-saving heroics against Holland to book Italy's place in the final against eventual winners France. Toldo announced his retirement from international football after Italy were eliminated from Euro 2004 at the group stage. He said: "Only Inter now." Toldo began playing football as right-back for a team in the province of Padua, until the fortuitous absence of the side's goalkeeper for a championship match led the coach to put Francesco between the posts. He was thirteen when that happened, and hasn't changed position since
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