Without cancer, Francesco Acerbi once said, he would have retired years ago. Perhaps when he was 28, which would have meant his career ended in 2016. Instead, here he is in 2025, preparing for his second Champions League final, maybe forever going to be the last footballer born in the 1980s to play in one. Or one of the last, anyway, given that his Inter Milan teammates Yann Sommer, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marko Arnautovic were also born when the Berlin Wall was still intact and Matteo Darmian before the 1990s arrived.
Acerbi can capture the imagination, both with his personal narrative and as an emblem of a style of Italian defending which can feel timeless. The Inter Milan veteran, who has subdued Erling Haaland with his old-school man-marking, turned implausible goalscorer in the 93rd-minute of the semi-final second leg against Barcelona. It was a striker’s finish from a man who spent a largely unglamorous career honing his trade of stopping strikers. The belated peak could come at 37 for the testicular cancer survivor. Acerbi is the second oldest scorer in Champions League knockout history, after only Ryan Giggs. At 23, however, he was still in Serie B. He spent many of his years of supposed prime at Sassuolo, dodging relegation then qualifying for Europe. It was the appointment of his Lazio manager Simone Inzaghi at Inter that took him to Milan.
