You have to go back to 2003 to find the last calendar year which didn't include a Giorgio Chiellini appearance for Italy.
It was a year when Christian Panucci wore the captain's armband for the Azzurri. When Nicola Legrottaglie started at centre-back and Fabrizio Miccoli got regular minutes further forward. Simply put, it was a different time.
Now, for the first time in the best part of two decades, Italian football fans have to prepare for a Chiellini-less national team once more. The Juventus veteran has announced this summer's 'Finalissima' against Argentina at Wembley will be his last appearance in that famous blue shirt, and the next chapter will begin whether the country is ready for it or not.
Across 116 appearances, the 37-year-old has been there for some of the highest and lowest moments experienced by Italy's men, giving everything for every single second. So involved was he, it's hard to look at those moments, good and bad, without seeing his face front and centre.
"I'll say goodbye to the national team at Wembley, which is where I experienced the pinnacle of my career winning the Euros," Chiellini told DAZN after helping Juve see off Sassuolo in a Serie A clash on Monday night. "I'd like to say goodbye to the Azzurri with a nice memory. That will certainly be my last game with Italy."
It feels fitting that the farewell will come in an environment which is both hugely important and not important at all. The memories of the dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over England will come rushing back, for sure, but it remains notable that the 2022 World Cup - kicking off 18 years almost to the day after Chiellini's Italy debut - won't involve the European champions thanks to their shock play-off defeat against North Macedonia.
That debut in 2004 arrived fresh off the back of a similar lowlight for Italy. In that case it was Antonio Cassano's dramatic last-minute winner against Bulgaria, quickly followed by the heartbreak of learning a 2-2 draw between Denmark and Sweden meant they were still eliminated. Marcello Lippi was brought in as manager, replacing Giovanni Trapattoni, and within months he had given Chiellini - in his first Juventus season - a senior debut.
Chiellini wasn't part of the World Cup winning squad, with Alessandro Nesta and Marco Materazzi still involved back then alongside star man Fabio Cannavaro. However, he was part of the Juve squad impacted by the Calciopoli scandal in the lead-up to the tournament.
The decision to stick around after the Bianconeri's demotion to Serie B, while the likes of Cannavaro and Lilian Thuram moved on, ended up being one he would never regret. Indeed, when Juve won the Scudetto in 2012, having clawed their way back up, he revealed as much.
“I’m proud that I was at this club during the Serie B years,” Chiellini said in 2012 (per Football Italia ). “They were tough times, but this Scudetto has made up for all of the disappointments. Now let’s hope we can start a new winning cycle."
By then, he was very much part of the international mix, having made a long-awaited World Cup debut in 2010 at the age of 25. It was a tournament many were keen to forget, with the reigning champions finishing bottom of their group without a single win, but the low points would end up making the high ones even more memorable.
This seems fitting for a player like Chiellini, who can feel like a relic from another time. He's a huge character in the mould of Italian centre-backs of previous generations, so much so that his stints on the left of a back four often felt slightly off, and there are times where it feels he's been able to motivate himself to find a new level as well as doing the same for his teammates
Some players might need a mentor to help them realise their potential. Chiellini seemed to find a way to act as his own mentor as well as fulfilling the role for his younger colleagues as he grew into a natural role as the elder statesman of the team.
His balance may well come from the fact that he has been so easily able to leave everything on the pitch to the point that he's a completely different person off it. In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Chiellini admitted to being "the most aggressive one" among Conte's international defence but also revealed others were surprised by his off-pitch persona.
“I met [Alvaro] Morata’s mum the other day, we had a train journey together, and she said the same thing: ‘When I saw you playing I never thought that you would turn out to be so calm and such a sweetie!’," he said.
"That has always been my character – on the pitch I have a strong temperament, but off the pitch I’m more serene, reflective. I manage to separate out those two things.”
Chiellini isn't the only one who operated at two extremes during his Italy career. The Azzurri themselves thrived in continental competition, reaching the Euro 2012 final and going one better two tournaments later, but never passed the World Cup group stages with the Juve man in the team.
First there was the 2014 debacle, with Chiellini the victim of a bite from Luis Suarez which - in the eyes of some neutrals, at least - overshadowed the fact that Cesare Prandelli's side suffered soft defeats against Costa Rica and Uruguay to go home early. In 2018, meanwhile, the reliable trio of Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli kept Sweden quiet at the San Siro but the forwards couldn't hold up their part of the bargain.
As for the 2022 play-off, and the almost unthinkable defeat to North Macedonia? Well, the veteran has never been one to avoid extremes.
"A great void will remain within us," he said after the heartbreak. "I am proud of a team that has given everything. It is clear that we are destroyed and crushed. We hope that this void will give us the push to start again."
This is not a tale of strength in the face of disappointment, though. It's strength for its own sake, surrounded by disappointments which stand on their own.
When we saw Chiellini drag back Bukayo Saka in the Euro 2020 final the symbolism was almost too on the nose. Here we had a man approaching the last years of his career, up against someone just starting out on his own journey, but the defender knew he still had the power to take that which was within his grasp.
In a way, though, the nature of Chiellini's retirement is fitting purely for the fact that it's imperfect. The fairytale ending would see him lift the World Cup in Qatar after dragging Juve to another Scudetto, but he knows as well as anyone else it doesn't work like that.
The highs and lows of football aren't something you can turn on and off at the flick of a switch. In order to live those emotions, you have to be invested in the moment more than anything else, and this is something no one can ever accuse Giorgio Chiellini of failing to understand.
