globally for his penalty miss in the Final of the 1994 World Cup against Brazil. For fans of Serie A, Baggio is recognised as the best of his generation, despite a career that was blighted by injury and clashes with his Coaches." He also added: "Retiring in 2004, it has been suggested that Baggio was a victim of the era in which he lived. As player with transcendent creativity, but physically fragile, he struggled to fit into his Coaches’ plans during a time when tactics and hard work were everything. Had he been born in the current era, where players are far more protected, he would perhaps have achieved even more. It's heart-breaking to think what we missed out on, but we’re also grateful to have experienced the Divine Ponytail at all." Baggio's career was affected by many serious injuries, which led to a gradual loss of speed and mobility as his career progressed, as well as increasing weight-gain in the final years of his career, which eventually forced him to undergo a training regime in order to build muscle mass in his legs and prolong his career during his time at Brescia; his continual physical struggles ultimately led him to retire in 2004, which he later described as a "liberation." Since suffering his first series of career-threatening injuries with Vicenza and Fiorentina in 1985 and 1986, respectively, he was prone to persistent knee problems in particular, which often limited his playing time; injuries led certain pundits, such as Benedetto Ferrara of La Repubblica in 2010, to label Baggio as a "superfine talent" but who was also "inconsistent." In 1995, Maurizio Crosetti, Ferrara's colleague, had previously described Baggio as "fragile." Regarding the injuries that threatened his career as a youngster, and which haggled him until he retired, Baggio wrote in his 2001 autobiography that "all of my professional career, I played it with a leg and a half. Thousands of hours of work to keep alive a leg which, if it were up to her, would diminish each day. I played it without being fully all right, ever, because if I were to play matches only when I felt one-hundred percent I would play three matches a year." Despite the numerous physical impairments he faced throughout his career, Baggio also stood out for his longevity, and was able to maintain a consistently high level of performance even in the final