13 March

Bruno Conti - World Cup winner

Roma star was key figure for azzurri in 1982 victory

The former footballer and subsequently coach, Bruno Conti, who played a starring role as Italy won the World Cup in Spain in 1982, was born on this day in 1955 in Nettuno, a seaside resort south of Rome.  A winger with extravagant skills, Conti became an increasingly influential figure as the azzurri campaign in 1982 gathered momentum after a slow start.  He scored Italy’s goal against Peru in the first group stage, a fine shot into the top right-hand corner from 20 yards (18m), although as a team Italy were not at their best and failed to win any of their opening three matches, scraping into the second group phase only by virtue of having scored more goals than Cameroon, who finished with the same number of points.  But the second phase saw a transformation as Italy defied the odds to beat the holders Argentina and the multi-talented Brazil team of Socrates, Zico and Falcao who had started the tournament as hot favourites. Read more…

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Eduardo Scarpetta - actor and playwright

Much-loved performer began theatrical dynasty

Eduardo Scarpetta, one of the most important writers and actors in Neapolitan theatre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in Naples.  Fascinated by the commedia dell’arte and Neapolitan puppet theatre character Pulcinella, Scarpetta was the writer of more than 50 dialect plays in the comedy genre, creating his own character, Felice Sciosciammocca, a wide-eyed, gullible but essentially good-natured Neapolitan who featured prominently in his best-known work, Miseria e Nobiltà (Misery and Nobility). His plays made him wealthy, although his standing was damaged towards the end of his career by a notorious dispute with Gabriele D’Annunzio, the celebrated playwright and poet with aristocratic roots who was a considerable figure in Italian literature.  Read more…

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Corrado Gaipa – actor

From The Godfather to voice of Alec Guinness

The respected character actor and voice-dubber Corrado Gaipa was born on this day in 1925 in Palermo.  His versatility as a voice actor brought him considerable work at a time when Italian cinema audiences much preferred to watch dubbed versions of mainstream English-language films rather than hear the original soundtrack with subtitles.  Gaipa’s voice replaced that of Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.  He was also heard dubbing Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Burt Lancaster in The Leopard, Telly Savalas in The Dirty Dozen and Lee J Cobb in The Exorcist.  He was the voice of a number of characters in animation films also, including Bagheera in Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book and Scat-Cat in The Aristocats.  As an actor in his own right, he worked with many leading directors in Italian cinema, including Francesco Rosi and Vittorio Gassman. Read more…

Pope Innocent XII

Pontiff who banned nepotism in papal appointments 

Pope Innocent XII, whose nine years as Pope at the end of the 17th century were notable for his ban on the practice of pontiffs appointing relatives to key positions in the papal court, was born Antonio Pignatelli on this day in 1615.  Innocent XII, who was elected Pope in July 1691 and led the Catholic Church until his death in September 1700, issued the papal bull entitled Romanum decet pontificem within a year of taking office, abolishing the position of Cardinal-Nephew in the church hierarchy.  The creation of Cardinal-Nephew as an office in the church had been officially recognised since 1566 but the practice of appointing family members had been used by a succession of popes since the Middle Ages to help them consolidate family power and wealth in an era when papal authority extended well beyond the confines of the church.  Read more…

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Ligabue - record-breaking rock star

Musician and writer once dubbed 'Italy's Springsteen'

Rock musician Luciano Ligabue - known simply as Ligabue - was born on this day in 1960. Once dubbed ‘Italy’s Springsteen’, he has been hugely successful in his own country but has never managed to achieve true international recognition. Yet such is his popularity in Italy that a Ligabue concert held on a stage erected on Reggio Emilia's airfield in 2005 attracted an audience of 180,000, at the time a European record for a paid-for event headlined by a single artist. He has played before audiences of more than 110,000 at the Giuseppe Meazza football stadium in Milan -- the home of Internazionale and AC Milan - and has twice repeated the so-called Campovolo event in Reggio Emilia. In September 2015, a concert to celebrate Ligabue's 25 years in the music business sold 150,000 tickets, making it the most lucrative single music concert in Italian history, with proceeds of around €7 million.  Read more…

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Flavia Cacace - dancer

Star of Strictly Come Dancing famous for Argentine Tango

The dancer Flavia Cacace, who found fame through the British hit television show, Strictly Come Dancing, was born on this day in 1980 in Naples.  She and professional partner Vincent Simone, who is from Puglia, performed on the show for seven seasons from 2006 to 2012.  The show, which has been mimicked in more than 50 countries across the world, including Italy and the United States, pairs celebrities with professional dancers, combining Latin and ballroom dances in a competition lasting several months.  Cacace, who was runner-up in 2007 with British actor Matt d'Angelo, left the show as champion in 2012 after she and the British Olympic gymnast Louis Smith won the final, which was watched by an estimated 13.35 million viewers.  The youngest of six children, Cacace moved to England shortly before her fifth birthday. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup, by Jonathan Wilson

By 1930, football had outgrown the Olympic Games. A new competition, run by Fifa, would take international football to the next level. After a shambolic start to the first tournament in Uruguay - an incomplete stadium, shoddy refereeing and physios accidentally injuring players - the thrilling final saw Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2.  From those chaotic beginnings grew the modern World Cup, a cultural phenomenon that draws the world together like nothing else. Ask a random person to name a moment in the history of Senegal and they may well say Pape Bouba Diop's winner against France in the 2002 World Cup, defeating his country's former colonial masters. The World Cup has political significance. West Germany's success in 1954 was a moment of reintegration into global society, while progress to the semi-finals in 1998 boosted Croatia's sense of national self. At the other end of the scale, in the so-called Soccer War of 1969, tensions between El Salvador and Honduras were ignited by a World Cup qualifier. More recently, hosting the tournament has been a vehicle for governments seeking political gain, the World Cups in Russia and Qatar being clear examples of sportswashing, staging a tournament to project an image of a thriving society. The story of the World Cup is also the story of the world. The Power and the Glory tells its definitive history.

Jonathan Wilson is the editor of The Blizzard and a freelance writer for the Guardian, World Soccer and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of 11 books, including Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe, Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina, The Barcelona Legacy and The Names Heard Long Ago.

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