Antonio Cassano grew up poor in the old section of Bari. As a child, he always played soccer in the streets of Bari and was picked up by a Bari scout and brought up through the AS Bari youth system.

Cassano made his Italian league debut in 1999 for Bari against local rivals Lecce, and a week later scored a superb goal against Inter Milan, one of the clubs who had courted Cassano before he had eventually signed professionally with his hometown club.

The top clubs in Italy each kept a close eye on Cassano, and with rumours of a pre-contract agreement having been signed with Roma, the player eventually signed for the then Serie A champions in the summer of 2001. The transfer fee of around €28m, was at that time a huge amount to pay for a player who was still only 19 years old - Juventus president Luciano Moggi said at the time: "Cassano is a real talent, but €28m for a player of his age is excessive. It's too soon to understand exactly how much he is worth."

Cassano's first season at Roma produced only five goals, but as he developed his game he began to come to the attention of those in charge of the national side, culminating in a scoring debut for Italy in November 2003, against Poland. He went on to make the squad for Euro 2004, scoring in two out of Italy's three matches.

Controversy has continually trailed Cassano as his numerous spats with coaches at club and international level will attest. His relationship with former Roma coach Fabio Capello was a fractious one - the pair fell out over Cassano's omission from a practice match days after his international debut - but Capello has himself since moved on to Juventus.

In the 2004/2005 Cassano showed his controverse behaviour to its greater extent: after the resignation of Cesare Prandelli because of personal reasons, he had a resounding quarrel with replacement Rudi Voeller for a month long, until Voeller resigned because of poor results. On 31 December2004, in one of the really rare interviews allowed by Cassano, he claimed to miss his former coach Fabio Capello, considered by Cassano "like a father".

During the following of the season, he had even been out of squad by Luigi Del Neri, who had been the third AS Roma coach during the season, before being replaced by Bruno Conti on a disastrous season for the giallorossi .

Right since the 2005/2006 pre-season, with Roma coached by former Udinese trainer Luciano Spalletti, Cassano continuously showed some bitterness for the club, especially at the highest levels, because of economical issues about a renewal of his contract, which would have expired in 30 June2006. Many sports columnists claimed that Cassano could leave Roma in order to join Juventus, and his former coach Fabio Capello, but eventually joined Real Madrid in January2006.