Javier Zanneti played 19 seasons for Inter Milan, under 19 different coaches, a record that still stands. Zanetti enjoyed a lot of success as a player and especially as a captain. He is one of the few captain's who have won a treble. Zanetti's career is full of successes for both club and country.
Javier Zanetti is widely regarded as one of the best captains in football history. The Argentine Fullback captained Nerazzurri for 15 seasons. He took the job of being a Captain and leader very seriously on and off the pitch. Zanetti after hanging up his boots in 2014 went on to become the Vice President of his beloved Inter Milan. Zanetti once revealed that one of his biggest defeats was when he failed to pull former teammate Adriano out of depression.
Adriano was seen as a highly promising striker during his time with Inter and scored 29 goals in 50 appearances for his national side, Brazil, but has struggled since leaving the club, having spells with different Brazilian side
He said, as quoted by Sempre Inter:
"Adriano had a father he was very attached to. One night He got a phone-call from Brazil with the news of his father's death. I saw him in his room, he threw the phone and started screaming. You couldn't imagine that kind of scream. I get goosebumps even to this day. Since that day Massimo Moratti and myself watched over him as he was our little brother."
At that time, I only felt happy when I drank,” Adriano said in a 2017 interview. “I could only sleep if I drank. My [Inter] coach, Roberto Mancini, and my team-mates noticed that I was hungover when I arrived for training. And I feared arriving too late, so I didn’t sleep and went to training still drunk. I slept in the medical department and Inter had to tell journalists that I had muscular pain.”
"Meanwhile he kept on playing football, he scored goals and watched towards the sky dedicating them to him. Since that phone-call nothing was the same. Ivan Cordoba spent one night with him and said: 'Adriano, you're a mix of Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic. Are you aware that you could become the best player ever? We did not succeed in pulling him out of depression. And that is perhaps my biggest defeat of a whole career. It still hurts me. I was so powerless."
