9 July

Paolo Di Canio - footballer

Sublime talent overshadowed by fiery temperament

The brilliant but controversial footballer Paolo Di Canio was born on July 9, 1968 in the Quarticciolo neighbourhood of Rome.  Di Canio, an attacking player with a reputation for scoring spectacular goals, played for several of Italy’s top clubs but also forged a career in Britain, joining Glasgow Celtic in Scotland and representing Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham United and Charlton Athletic during a seven-year stay in England.  After finishing his playing career back in Italy, he returned to England to become manager of Swindon Town and then Sunderland.  Di Canio scored almost 150 goals in his career but his fiery temper landed him in trouble on the field while his political views attracted negative headlines off it.  Despite growing up in a working-class area of Rome which was a stronghold of AS Roma fans, Di Canio supported their city rivals SS Lazio. Read more…

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Adriano Panatta – tennis player

French Open champion was most at home on the clay

The only tennis player ever to defeat Bjorn Borg at Roland Garros in Paris, Adriano Panatta was born on July 9, 1950 in Rome.  A successful singles player, Panatta reached the peak of his career in 1976 when he won the French Open, gaining his only Grand Slam title, defeating the American player, Harold Solomon, in the final 6-1, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6.  Panatta learnt to play tennis as a youngster on the clay courts of the Tennis Club Parioli in Rome, where his father was the caretaker.  He won top-level titles at Bournemouth in 1973, Florence in 1974 and at Kitzbuhel in Austria and Stockholm in 1975.  In the same year that he won the French Open, Panatta won the Italian Open in Rome, beating Guillermo Vilas in the final 2-6, 7-6, 6-2, 7-6. In the first round of the competition he had saved 11 match points in his match against the Australian Kim Warwick.  Read more…

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Ottorino Respighi – violinist and composer

Talented Bolognese brought a Russian flavour to Italian music

The musician Ottorino Respighi was born on July 9, 1879 in an apartment inside Palazzo Fantuzzi in the centre of Bologna.  As a composer, Respighi is remembered for bringing Russian orchestral colour and some of Richard Strauss’s harmonic techniques into Italian music.  He is perhaps best known for his three orchestral tone poems Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals, but he also wrote several operas.  Respighi was born into a musical family and learnt to play the piano and violin at an early age.  He studied the violin and viola with Federico Sarti at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna and then went to St Petersburg to be the principal violinist in the orchestra of the Imperial Theatre. While he was there he studied with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and acquired an interest in orchestral composition.  Read more…

Gianluca Vialli - footballer and coach

Striker who shone with Sampdoria and Juventus and managed Chelsea

The footballer Gianluca Vialli, who enjoyed success as a player in Italy and England and led Chelsea to five trophies as manager of the London club, was born on July 9, 1964 in Cremona in Lombardy.  After beginning his professional career with his local team, Cremonese, Vialli spent eight seasons with Sampdoria of Genoa, helping a team that had seldom previously finished higher than mid-table in Serie A enjoy their most successful era, winning the Coppa Italia three times, the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and a first Serie A title in 1990-91.  He then spent four years with Juventus, winning another Scudetto in 1994-95 and becoming a Champions League winner the following season.  He signed for Chelsea in 1996 as one of the first in a wave of top Italian players arriving in the Premier League in the second half of that decade. Read more…

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Manlio Brosio - NATO secretary-general

Anti-Fascist politician became skilled diplomat

Manlio Brosio, the only Italian to be made a permanent secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), was born on July 9, 1897 in Turin.  Brosio, whose diplomatic career had seen him hold the office of Italian ambassador to the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France, was appointed to lead NATO in 1964 and remained in post until 1971, the second longest-serving secretary-general.  Known for his congenial personality, he insisted that others behaved courteously and with respect for etiquette, while conducting himself with self-restraint.  This enabled him to maintain a good relationship with all NATO ambassadors and helped him manage a number of difficult situations.  Some critics felt he was too cautious but his low-key approach is now credited with keeping NATO together during the crisis that developed in 1966. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Paolo Di Canio: The Autobiography, by Paolo Di Canio and Gabriele Marcotti

The autobiography of the outrageously talented Italian striker, a footballer who has won the hearts of supporters wherever he has played – this despite his infamous tantrums and volatile behaviour on the pitch. Paolo Di Canio is a player who doesn’t recognise the footballer’s code of conduct: he says what he thinks and heaven help the person who has crossed him. Born into a working-class family in Rome, he displays the archetypal Latin temperament, which has seen him get into more trouble with referees than can be good for his health. In his autobiography, Di Canio relives his colourful career with a host of clubs, from the likes of Milan, Napoli and Juventus in Italy to Celtic, Sheffield Wednesday and West Ham.  In Paolo Di Canio: The Autobiography, he describes vividly his Latin roots, the young Italians’ pastime of chasing the girls, and the ups and downs of his early football career.

Paolo Di Canio is an Italian former professional footballer and manager. During his playing career he made in excess of 500 league appearances and scored more than 100 goals. He primarily played as a deep-lying forward, but he could also play as an attacking midfielder. Gabriele Marcotti is an Italian sports journalist, sports author, and radio-television presenter. Born in Italy and now based in London, he was raised in the United States, Poland, Germany and Japan.

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