Luis Figo’s final game against Atalanta for Inter Milan at the Giuseppe Meazza on Sunday brings to an end a remarkable career.
And it is the autumn of that career which exemplifies how great a player he was.
When he joined Inter in 2005, Real Madrid were in no hurry to extend the deal of the then 32-year-old.
His best days seemed over, the pace to beat opponents as a winger had dissipated. It looked like his Serie A days would be a gradual swansong, a fading of his natural talent and a big cheque to smooth the path to retirement.
Four Scudetti, three Supercoppas and a Coppa Italia later, no-one could accuse Figo of not doing his bit for the Nerazzurri cause.
Even in his final couple of seasons, Figo appeared in about half of the club’s Serie A games. Both Roberto Mancini and successor Jose Mourinho appreciated the talents that Figo retained rather than the attributes that he had lost.
Figo’s ball retention and intelligence were impeccable, his ability to work out the frailties of the defender in front of him and adapt his next move accordingly still remarkable.
Any obituary of Figo’s career will mention the obvious. World Player of the Year in 2001, Ballon D’Or winner the year before. It will cite his mental strength, that had him continuing to take corners for Real Madrid in the famous game against Barcelona in 2002 where the hardcore boixos nois fans had earlier thrown a severed pig's head at him.
It will not skate over the bad times, such as his temper tantrum with then Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari when substituted after 74 minutes of the Euro 2004 quarter-final against England.
Yet it says much both for Figo (and Scolari, for that matter) that he was able to come back and lead his country to the final of Euro 2004 with a man-of-the-match performance against Holland days later.
The true mark of greatness for a footballer is often how he copes with the adversity of the ageing process. How do they cope when skills that once seemed instinctive suddenly seem impossible? When the pace goes, and they find themselves being outpaced by thirty-year-old full-backs?
Some, like Ronaldo, carry on as before, and become miserable parodies of their former greatness, relying on muscle memory when all there is left is fat.
Others like Cantona, see the long-view and retire at their peak, unwilling to allow their legend to become besmirched by obsolescence.
And there are others like Figo, who adapt, who make the pace of the game conform to their own needs, and who continue to make themselves indispensable to managers even as the years pass on.