Christ, Maldini made a ton of mistakes!
Maldini averaged just half a tackle per game. Of course he had an endless career which means that he made a lot of tackles in his life. However I think one should go deeper on what he actually said. Let me post the rest of it.
“Tackling is a [last] resort, and you will need it, but it isn’t a quality to aspire to, a definition.
“It’s hard to change because it’s so rooted in the English football culture, but I don’t understand it.”
He's right. Tackling is so unpredictable. A mistimed tackle might be avoided which means that the team would be 1 defender down at a time when it needs all hands on board,, the defender might end up fouling the player in a dangerous position and he might end up seeing red. One bad tackle is all it takes for a team to lose a key game or even to ruin a player's career. Which is why it should be seen as a last resort.
Maldini lived at a time when English CBs just loved to tackle. It was like a badge of honour for them. Till this very day there are people who would rate hard tacklers like Vidic or Terry ahead of the best CB England had since Moore aka Rio and I assure you things were worse in the 90s early 2000s