The goalscorer Gianluca Vialli, symbol of Italian football of the 90s, has died

A symbol of Italian football in the late 1980s and 1990s, former striker Gianluca Vialli has died at the age of 58 from pancreatic cancer, one of his former clubs Sampdoria announced on Friday.

Vialli, who has also played for Juventus and Chelsea, was diagnosed in 2017. At the 2021 Euro Cup he served as assistant to his former Sampdoria teammate Roberto Mancini, guiding the Italian side to the title at Wembley.

“We will remember you as a lad and a relentless centre-forward,” Sampdoria wrote on their website.

With the Genoese team he was champion of the Recopa in 1990, of the Italian championship in 1991 and reached the final of the Champions Cup in 1992, lost against Barcelona.

Then he was transferred to Juventus (1992-1996) for a very high fee for the time, equal to 16.5 million euros (17.35 million dollars). He then managed to lift the Champions League, in 1996, before signing with Chelsea (1996-1999), where he was player-manager in 1998.

In his palmares there is also a UEFA Cup won with the black and whites in 1993, while with Chelsea he won another Cup Winners’ Cup (1998). He retired a year later.

Italian national team on 59 occasions, scored 16 goals. He hasn’t won any titles, which he conquered as assistant to Mancini, his great friend from Sampdoria, with whom he gave a long and moving hug after the penalty won against England which meant the Eurocup.

The tears of both, winners at a time when Vialli was ill with cancer, went around the world.

“He is an undesirable travel companion, but I have to go on, travel with my head down and not give up, hope he gets tired and lets me live for a long time,” Vialli said of 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 has sent a wave of emotion through Italian football.

“Goodbye Gianluca, we will always remember you,” the Italian team posted on their Twitter account.

“We won’t forget his 141 goals, your aerial shots, your cashmere shirts, your earring, your platinum-blond hair, your Ultras bomber jacket. You gave us so much,” added Sampdoria.

Vialli’s best moment as a player was lived with Mancini. Both born in 1964, they were dubbed ‘the goal twins’, leading Sampdoria to the top between the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The team was Serie A champion in 1991 with Mancini under construction and Vialli under definition – he was top scorer with 19 goals-.

His image turning in his underwear remains in memory. “I improved (in dressing) when I went out in Turin and London,” he said laughing in a Rai broadcast in November 2022, when he presented ‘The beautiful season’ with Mancini, a documentary about his best days in Sampdoria.

Winner of three Italian Cups in this golden age, the Genoese club were one goal away from the top title. In 1992, a direct free kick from Ronald Koeman earned Barcelona victory in the European Cup final at Wembley.

Almost 30 years later, Vialli and Mancini shrugged on the same stage at the Eurocup.

“There was love, friendship, even fear… These tears were filled with so many things,” Vialli said about the hug he then recited with his ‘twin’.

With information from AFP