At Chelsea they also remembered him with great affection / ap
A symbol of Italian soccer in the late 1980s and 1990s, legendary striker Gianluca Vialli died yesterday at the age of 58 due to pancreatic cancer, Sampdoria, one of his former clubs, announced.
Vialli, who also played for Juventus and Chelsea, was diagnosed in 2017. At the Euro Cup in 2021 he served as an assistant to his former Sampdoria teammate, Roberto Mancini, leading the Italian team to the title at Wembley.
“We will remember you as a boy and a relentless center forward,” Sampdoria wrote on their website. The news hit very hard in that club.
Transfer to Juventus
With the Genoese team he was champion of the Recopa in 1990, of the Italian league in 1991 and reached the final of the European Cup in 1992, lost against Barcelona.
Then he was transferred to Juventus (1992-1996) for a very high sum for the time, the equivalent of 16.5 million euros (17.35 million dollars). He then was able to lift the Champions League, in 1996, before signing with Chelsea (1996-1999), in which he served as player-coach in 1998.
His record also includes a UEFA Cup won with the Bianconeri in 1993, while with Chelsea he won another Cup Winners’ Cup (1998). He retired a year later.
Italian international on 59 occasions, scored 16 goals. He did not win any title, which he did achieve as an assistant to Mancini, his great friend from Sampdoria, with whom he gave himself an emotional and long hug after the penalty session won against England that meant the title in the Eurocup.
The tears of both, winners at a time when Vialli was suffering from cancer, went around the world.
“He is an undesirable travel companion, but I have to go forward, travel with my head down and not give up, hope that he gets tired and lets me live a long time,” Vialli said about his illness in a documentary broadcast by Rai in 2021. .
The announcement of the death of ‘Lucagol’ or ‘The Lion King’, as Vialli was known, caused a wave of emotion in Italian football.
Disappointment and glory at Wembley
“Goodbye Gianluca, we will always remember you,” the Italian team posted on their Twitter account.
“We will not forget his 141 goals, your aerial shots, your cashmere shirts, your earring, your platinum blonde hair, your Ultras bomber jacket. You have given us so much”, added Sampdoria.
The best time as a Vialli player was lived with Mancini. Both born in 1964, they were nicknamed ‘the goal twins’, leading Sampdoria to the top in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The team was champion of Serie A in 1991 with Mancini in the construction and Vialli in the definition -he was the top scorer with 19 goals-.
His image turning around in his underpants remains in memory. “I got better (at the time of dressing) when I went out to Turin and London,” he said with a laugh in a Rai broadcast in November 2022, when he presented “La bella stagione” with Mancini, a documentary about his best days in the Sampdoria.
Winner of three Italian Cups in this golden age, the Genoese club was one goal away from the maximum title. In 1992, a direct free kick launched by Ronald Koeman gave Barcelona victory in the European Cup final at Wembley.
Almost 30 years later, Vialli and Mancini got their backs lifting the Euro Cup on the same stage.
“There was love, friendship, fear too… These tears were filled with many things,” Vialli said about the hug he then starred in with his “twin.”
