On the death of Gianluca Vialli († 58)
One of the Tor twins is no more
Gianluca Vialli died on Friday night after a year-long battle with cancer. Italy mourns the loss of one of the greats.
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Gianluca Vialli died on Friday night.
Carlo Emanuele FrezzaReporter football
Italy is mourning again. After Sinisa Mihajlovic († 53), one of the best midfielders in Serie A history, died in mid-December, the Italian striker legend Gianluca Vialli has now fallen asleep forever. At the age of 58, he lost years of battle with a pancreatic tumor.
Vialli’s death moved. The reactions are tremendous. “Ciao Gianluca, we will never forget you,” wrote the Italian Football Association on Twitter. A letter from his ex-club Sampdoria is particularly emotional. «You gave us and we gave you a lot. Yes, it was mutual and infinite love». The message from Milan star Alessandro Florenzi is similarly moving: “I only wanted one thing for Christmas: that you answer my SMS. But that didn’t happen and it won’t happen again. Rest in peace master of life.”
Vialli was one of the greats. He’s won pretty much everything: Serie A, Coppa Italia, Champions League, Uefa Cup, Cup Winners’ Cup. Only with the Italian national team has he never lifted a trophy. He has scored 16 goals in 59 games for the Azzurri. He made his breakthrough at Sampdoria in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Together with Roberto Mancini he forms a feared forward duo. They are called “Gemelli del gol” – the Italian goal twins.
On the island he meets the love of his life
Vialli and Mancini shoot the club from Genoa in 1991 to the only Serie A title in the club’s history. In the following season, they march through the championship cup with Sampdoria and only admit defeat to FC Barcelona in the final. It’s deja vu. Because three years earlier, Samp was defeated by the Spaniards in Wankdorf in Berne in the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup. After eight years in the port city, Vialli moved to Juventus in 1992. In Turin he expands his palmarès powerfully. At the end of his career he dares an adventure in the Premier League, with Chelsea he won the Cup Winners’ Cup and the English League Cup as player-coach (!).
Thanks to his time in England, Vialli meets his great love, Cathryn. In 2003 he married her. They later raise two daughters together – Olivia and Sofia. Vialli remains connected to football. Sometimes he writes a book. Other times he works as a TV expert. He returns to the big stage of football in 2019 when his longtime friend Mancini integrates him into the staff for the Italy national team.
“I never saw it as a fight”
At this point, Vialli had been suffering from cancer for two years. But he feels fit enough. When asked about his illness, he said to the “Gazzetta dello Sport” in October 2020: “I never saw it as a fight because I always thought it was better to keep cancer as a friend. I always thought of him as a traveling companion I would have avoided.”
Vialli’s time with the Azzurri turns out to be fruitful. In the summer of 2021 they will win the European Championship. Only a few months later, the Calcio is back on the ground because of the missed World Cup. For Vialli, however, the really bad news comes as the World Cup is in full swing. The cancer is back. He is admitted to a hospital in London. Then, on the night of January 6th, the sad certainty. “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of Gianluca Vialli,” writes the family. “Italy says goodbye to one of the most popular of all,” headlines the “Gazzetta”.
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