Background
Cannavaro was born in Naples on 26 June 1981.
Cannavaro was born in Naples on 26 June 1981.
He is the younger brother of the retired football defender Fabio Cannavaro. Early career
Cannavaro made his professional debut for his hometown side South.S.C. Napoli during the 1998-1999 season in Serie B, while he was 17 years old. Parma and Verona
Verona took the player on loan during the 2001-2002 season, Cannavaro turned out 25 times for the club, scoring his first professional goal.
The successive year he returned to Parma where he spent much of the time as a substitute for the following two seasons (2002–2003, 2003–2004).
Napoli
As Napoli were promoted back into Serie A, and were building a squad with potential, Cannavaro was brought back to his first club After helping to re-establish the club in the top flight of Italian football, Cannavaro was installed as captain and lifted the club"s first major trophy in more than 20 years when Napoli defeated Juventus 2-0 in the Coppa Italia final on 20 May 2012.
Napoli were defeated 4-2 in extra time in the 2012 Supercoppa Italiana by Juventus, in Rome. In December 2012 Cannavaro was handed a 6-month ban for failing to report an attempt of match fixing by then Napoli goalkeeper Matteo Gianello.
On 17 January 2013, the ban was revoked by the FIGC after appeal and Napoli"s two-point deduction was reversed.
Sassuolo
On 31 January 2014, Cannavaro joined Sassuolo on loan for the remainder of the season for free, helping the newly promoted club to avoid relegation. Sassuolo signed Cannavaro outright for a peppercorn of €1,000 fee, in a three-year contract in summer 2014. As a youngster, Cannavaro played for Italy under-21 national football team on 18 occasions between 2002 and 2004, notably representing the Italy under-21 side at the 2002 Union of European Football Associations European Under-21 Championship, where they reached the semi-finals.