Diego Maradona joins Napoli

Argentina star hailed as a ‘messiah’ by Neapolitans

Diego Maradona helped SSC Napoli to
reach the top of the Italian football world

SSC Napoli, a club who had never won Italy’s Serie A since their formation in 1926 and lived in the shadow of the powerful clubs in the north of the country, stunned the football world on this day in 1984 by completing the world record signing of Argentina star Diego Maradona.

Maradona, who would captain his country as they won the World Cup in Mexico two years later, agreed to move to Napoli from Spanish giants Barcelona, who he had joined from Argentina club Boca Juniors in 1982.

Although the Catalan team had been keen to offload him after two years in which Maradona had never been far from controversy, his arrival in arguably the poorest major city in Italy, whose team had finished 10th and 12th in the previous two Serie A seasons, was still a sensation.

Maradona’s unveiling at the Stadio San Paolo on 5 July, 1984 attracted a crowd of 75,000 to the stadium. Napoli supporters were fanatical about their team despite their lack of success and were thrilled to have a distraction at a time when problems with housing, schools, buses, employment and sanitation were making daily life in Naples very difficult.

The world record fee of £6.9 million was funded in part by a loan arranged by a local politician. 

Napoli fans immediately identified with Maradona, who hailed from a working class background in Buenos Aires and made his name playing with a club, Boca Juniors, which represented a part of the city that was home to many ex-patriate Italians and their descendants. 

Maradona was unveiled before
75,000 fans at the Stadio San Paolo

The move to Napoli suited Maradona, who had some debts at the time but was able to pay them off with his signing-on fee and the money made by selling off his home in Catalonia.

Within three seasons, with Maradona captain, Napoli had won the Serie A championship. At a time when Italy’s north-south divide was being sharply felt in the south with a wide economic disparity between the two halves of the country, the reaction in the city was tumultuous. 

Neapolitans spilled out onto the streets to hold impromptu parties and motor cavalcades turning Naples into a carnival city for a week. Napoli fans painted coffins in the colours of northern giants Juventus and Milan and burned them in mock funerals. 

Ancient, crumbling buildings around the city were decorated with huge murals of Maradona, whose face was in every shop window. Suddenly, Diego became the most popular name for newborn baby boys.

The 1986-87 title season was only the start.  Napoli were runners-up in Serie A for the next two seasons and won the title again in 1989-90, also winning the Coppa Italia in 1987, the UEFA Cup in 1989 and the Italian Supercup in 1990. 

Although he was primarily an attacking midfielder rather than an out-and-out striker, Maradona was the top scorer in Serie A in 1987–88 with 15 goals, amassing 115 goals in his seven-year stay at the club, which made him Napoli’s all-time leading goalscorer until the record was surpassed by Marek Hamšík in 2017.

Maradona’s relationship with the fans soured a little after his Argentina side defeated Italy in the semi-final of the World Cup in Naples in 1990, after which it broke down completely when his cocaine use led to him repeatedly missing training sessions and some matches, leading ultimately to a 15-month ban and a departure from the club somewhat in disgrace.

Yet to many in Naples he remained a hero and shortly after his death in September 2020, Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo home ground was renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

The Palazzo Reale is a legacy of the wealth of
Naples in the 17th and 18th centuries

Travel tip:

In recent years, Naples has become the poorest of Italy’s major cities, but in the 17th and 18th centuries it was one of Europe's great cities and many of the city’s finest buildings are a legacy of that period. In the area around Piazza del Plebiscito, for example, you can see the impressive Palazzo Reale, which was one of the residences of the Kings of Naples at the time the city was capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The palace is home to a 30-room museum and the largest library in southern Italy, both now open to the public. Close to the royal palace is one of the oldest opera houses in the world, built for a Bourbon King of Naples. Teatro di San Carlo was officially opened on 4 November 1737, some years before La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice. Part of the Bourbon legacy to Naples is the vast Reggia di Caserta, the royal palace commissioned in 1752 by Charles VII of Naples and built by the Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli along the lines of the French royal palace at Versailles.

The Stadio San Paolo - now the Stadio Diego Armando
Maradona - is the third largest football ground in Italy

Travel tip:

The Stadio San Paolo - now renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona - is Italy’s third largest football ground with a capacity of just over 60,000. Built in the Fuorigrotta neighbourhood on the north side of the city, it was completed in 1959, more than 10 years after work began and has since been renovated twice, including for the 1990 World Cup. The home of SSC Napoli, it was Maradona’s home stadium between 1984 and 1991. The suburb of Fuorigrotta, the most densely populated area of the city, lies beyond the Posillipo hill and has been joined to the main body of Naples by two traffic tunnels that pass through the hill since the early 20th century. The suburb is also the home of the vast Mostra d’Oltremare, one of the largest exhibition complexes in Italy, built in 1937 to host the Triennale d'Oltremare, the aim of which was to celebrate the colonial expansion envisaged by the Fascist dictator Mussolini.

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of military leader Giovanni Sforza

1966: The birth of footballer Gianfranco Zola

1974: The birth of motorcycling champion Roberto Locatelli

1982: The birth of footballer Alberto Gilardino

1982: Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick defeats Brazil at the 1982 World Cup

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Alessandro Altobelli - World Cup winner

Scored Italy’s third goal in 1982 Final

Alessandro Altobelli in action in one of
his 61 games for the Italy national team 

Alessandro Altobelli, one of only four players to score in a World Cup final after starting on the substitutes’ bench, was born on this day in 1955 in Sonnino, a small medieval town in mountainous southern Lazio.

At the age of 26, Altobelli was part of Enzo Bearzot’s squad for the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain, in which Italy triumphed for the first time since their two tournament victories under Vittorio Pozzo in the 1930s.

A striker with Internazionale of Milan, Altobelli did not start a single game in the 1982 finals and had played only a few minutes during Italy’s progress to the knock-out stages.

But he was called on after just seven minutes of the Final against West Germany, replacing Francesco Graziani, stricken with a shoulder injury, and his patience waiting for his chance was rewarded when he finished an Italian counter-attack with their third goal in the second half, giving the Azzurri a 3-0 lead that the Germans could not overcome.

Italy’s tournament hero, Paolo Rossi, had scored their opening goal before Marco Tardelli fired home their second, which he celebrated wildly in what became the enduring image of the tournament.  Paul Breitner then scored for West Germany but the Italians by then looked unassailable.

The Italians had made a poor start to the tournament, scraping through the opening group phase, in which they drew all of their three games but progressed to the second phase only because they scored one more goal than outsiders Cameroon, who had an identical record.

Paolo Rossi was Italy's 
star in the 1982 finals

Yet they exploded into life in the second group phase, defeating holders Argentina before stunning favourites Brazil in one of the greatest games in World Cup history, Rossi scoring a hat-trick in a 3-2 win.

They swept aside Poland in the semi-finals before proving too strong for the Germans in the final before a 90,000 crowd in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid.

Altobelli began his career with his local team, Latina, in Serie C - the third tier of the Italian football pyramid. He impressed enough in his debut season in the first team to earn a move to Brescia, who played in Serie B, where his form caught the eye of Serie A scouts. In 1977 he joined Inter.

It was at the San Siro, where Inter shared the famous Giuseppe Meazza Stadium with city rivals AC Milan, that his quality came to the fore. In 317 Serie A appearances, he scored 128 goals, finishing as Inter’s top scorer in nine of his 10 seasons. His 15 goals in the 1977-78 helped them win the scudetto - the Serie A title - for the 12th time.

In his time with Inter, Altobelli also won the Coppa Italia twice. He left in 1988 to join Juventus and finished his career back at Brescia.  With almost 300 career goals in senior football, he is one of the top 10 most prolific strikers in Italian football history. His 56 goals in 93 games in the Coppa Italia remains the biggest tally for any player in the competition.

Altobelli today is a familiar
face to television viewers

Despite a slender build that saw him acquire the nickname Il spillo - the needle - Altobelli was deceptively strong and difficult to knock off the ball, as well as possessing a powerful and accurate shot with each foot.

His international career began in his third season with Inter, making his debut in the 1980 European championships, and he went on to make 61 appearances for the Azzurri, scoring 25 goals, captaining the side at Euro 1988.

After his retirement as a player, Altobelli had a brief career in politics, gaining election as a councillor in Brescia in 1991, representing the Christian Democrats, and made an unsuccessful attempt to be elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1996.

By that time, he was back in football, both as a player - representing Italy at the world beach football championships - and in a management capacity as sporting director at Calcio Padova. He also acted as a scout for Inter.

More recently, he has been a regular television pundit, appearing on a number of popular shows.

A narrow street typical
of medieval Sonnino

Travel tip:

Sonnino is a small hill town with many preserved medieval features in the Monti Lepini mountain range of southern Lazio, in the province of Latina. It is thought to have grown from an eighth century settlement established when inhabitants of the town of Priverno moved to higher ground to hide from invading Barbarians. Over the centuries it was controlled by several major Italian families, including the Borgias and Colonnas. Situated about an hour and 45 minutes’ journey from Rome to the north and a similar distance from Naples to the south, Sonnino’s elevated position offers spectacular views, while visitors can explore a network of steep, narrow streets.

Latina's Cattedrale di San
Marco was completed in 1933

Travel tip:

To some, Latina, the capital of the province of the same name that includes Sonnino, serves as an ugly reminder of the dark days of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist dictatorship. To others, it stands as a monument to the architectural style that typified the era, which combined some elements of classicism, with its preponderance of columns and arches, with the stark lines of 1920s and 30s rationalism. The city itself owes its very existence to Mussolini, being built on land reclaimed when his government fulfilled its pledge to drain the inhospitable, mosquito-ridden Pontine Marshes to which visitors frequently became infected with malaria. Established in 1932 as Littoria - a name in itself associated with Fascist symbolism - it has a large number of monuments and edifices, including a town hall with a tall clock tower and a cathedral, designed by architects such as Marcello Piacentini and Angiolo Mazzoni. Renamed Latina in 1946, it has grown into a substantial city with a population of 126,000, making it the second largest city in Lazio after Rome. 

Also on this day:

1873: The death of astronomer Caterina Scarpellini

1907: The birth of writer Alberto Moravia

1913: The birth of film music composer Mario Nascimbene

1941: The birth of actress Laura Antonelli

1977: The birth of 2006 World Cup hero Fabio Grosso

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Roberto Donadoni - footballer and coach

Understated midfielder who helped AC Milan win six Serie A titles

Roberto Donadoni is now a coach after
a hugely successful playing career

The footballer and coach Roberto Donadoni, who was a key figure in an AC Milan side that dominated Italian football for the best part of a decade, was born on this day in 1963 in Cisano Bergamasco in Lombardy.

A winger or midfielder famed for his ability to create goalscoring opportunities for his team-mates, Donadoni was once described by the brilliant French attacker Michel Platini as ‘the best Italian footballer of the 1990s’.

His collection of 21 winner’s medals includes six for winning the Serie A title with AC Milan and three for the European Cup or Champions League.

He was also part of the Italian national team that reached the final of the World Cup in 1994, losing to Brazil on penalties.

Donadoni was never a prolific goalscorer: in more than 500 league and international matches, he found the net only 34 times. Yet he had exceptional technical ability and great passing skills and if tallies of ‘assists’ in matches had been recorded during his career as they are now, the role he played in Milan’s success in particular would be appreciated still more.

Since ending his career as a player, Donadoni has totted up 450 matches as a coach, taking charge at seven clubs in Italian football and one in China, as well as having a stint as head coach of the national team. Although he led the Azzurri to the quarter-finals of Euro 2008, he has yet to win a trophy as a coach.

Donadoni won six Serie A
titles with AC Milan

Born within the province of Bergamo, it was natural for Donadoni to launch his professional career with Atalanta, the club based in Bergamo, the Lombardy region’s fourth largest city. He joined the club’s youth system and made his debut in Serie C at the age of 18, winning the Serie C1 title in his first season.

Two years later, in 1984, he helped Atalanta return to Serie A after an absence of five seasons, as Serie B champions. His youthful talent did not go unnoticed and in 1986 he moved to AC Milan, one of the first signings made following Silvio Berlusconi’s takeover of the club.

It was not long before he was playing in front of defenders such as Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini and Mauro Tassotti and behind strikers of the calibre of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and George Weah as the Milan teams coached by Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello swept all before them.

He was part of the team that Sacchi led to the 1987-88 Serie A title, Milan’s first for nine years, which went on to win the European Cup in 1989 and 1990, the first team to retain the trophy since Nottingham Forest a decade earlier.

Under Capello, who succeeded Sacchi when the latter was appointed to coach the national team, Donadoni won four scudetti - the scudetto being the shield-shaped badge worn on the shirts of the reigning champions - in the space of five seasons, as well as another European Cup, by then rebranded as the Champions League, in 1994.

Donadoni has gained respect as a coach, although
he has yet to enjoy tangible success

After his fifth domestic title, Donadoni left the club, initially intending to retire but then accepting on offer to extend his career in the United States with the Metrostars, where his form not only prompted a recall to the Italian national team but a further stint with AC Milan, where he was part of Alberto Zaccheroni's team that won Serie A in 1998-99.

Regarded as the most dedicated and selfless of players, he was once quoted as saying that his greatest satisfaction on the football field came from “making the pass that leads to the goal”.

In his international career, Donadoni made his senior debut for the Azzurri in 1986 and was a key member of the team that finished third in the 1990 World Cup on home soil under Azeglio Vicini, although the tournament was marred for him by missing one of Italy’s penalties in the shoot-out that determined their semi-final against Argentina, which was won by the South American side.

He went one better in the 1994 World Cup in the United States. Reunited with his former Milan coach Sacchi, he helped the Italians reach the final in Pasadena, but was again on the losing side after a penalty shoot-out, with Brazil taking the prize. This time, Donadoni was spared the responsibility of taking one of the kicks.

He retired for good in 2000, having helped Al-Ittihad win the Saudi Premier League title.

Since then he has built a second career as a coach. Following the traditional Italian route of working his way up through the lower divisions, Donadoni took his first coaching job with Lecco - just 15km (nine miles) north of his hometown of Cisano Bergamasco - and has since had another nine coaching contracts with eight clubs, as well as a two-year spell as head coach of the national team. 

He was sacked as Azzurri coach after Italy’s disappointing performance at Euro 2008 and had the misfortune to be in charge at Parma as the once highly-successful club plunged towards bankruptcy for a second time in 2015, when he was applauded for sticking by his players - unsuccessfully, in the end - as they battled to avoid relegation from Serie A, despite going unpaid for a year.

The new church of San Zenone in
Cisano Bergamasco

Travel tip:

The small town of Cisano Bergamasco is in the San Martino valley, which straddles the provinces of Lecco, 15km (nine miles) to the north, and Bergamo, 20km (12 miles) to the southeast. It is also close to the lakeside city of Como, some 40km (25 miles) to the west. Although there has been a settlement in the area since Roman times, and some remains of the medieval Vimercati-Sozzi Castle are preserved within the grounds of a private villa, the Cisano Bergamasco of today is typical of the pleasant, well-maintained municipalities to be found in much of northern Italy.

Lecco sits alongside the beautiful Lago
di Lecco, the eastern fork of Lake Como

Travel tip:

Lecco, where Roberto Donadoni took his first steps in coaching, lies at the end of the south eastern branch of Lago di Como, which is known as Lago di Lecco. The Bergamo Alps rise to the north and east of the lake. The writer Alessandro Manzoni lived in Lecco for part of his life and based his famous novel, I promessi sposi, there. 

Also on this day:

1908: The birth of writer Cesare Pavese

1918: The birth of former Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro

1943: Allied troops land at Salerno, south of Naples

1982: The birth of photographer and film director Francesco Carrozzini

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Gianluca Vialli - footballer and coach

Striker who managed Chelsea has faced personal battle

Gianluca Vialli is currently working
with the Italian national team

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 this day in 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 an historic 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, becoming player-manager in 1998 after the man who signed him, Ruud Gullit, was sacked. 

In the blue of Chelsea, Vialli won medals in the FA Cup as a player, the Football League Cup, the Cup-Winners’ Cup and the UEFA Super Cup as player-manager, before guiding the team to another FA Cup success as manager, after retiring as a player at the end of the 1998-99 season.

After leaving Stamford Bridge, Vialli remained in London, dropping out of the Premier League to take charge of second-tier club Watford but lasted only a season before being sacked and has not worked in management since.

Vialli was a prolific goalscorer in the 
colours of Sampdoria 

Vialli, who also made 59 appearances and scored 16 goals for the Italian national team, was for many years a pundit on the Sky Italia satellite TV channel and has written two books. He has been a member of current Azzurri head coach Roberto Mancini’s pitch-side technical staff during the delayed 2020 European championships, having emerged successfully from a two-and-a-half year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Vialli’s upbringing was very different from most footballers. The youngest of five children, he enjoyed the trappings of his entrepreneur father’s wealth, being brought up in the historic 60-room Castello di Belgioioso, in the small town of the same name set in extensive gardens a little under 60km (37 miles) west of Cremona on the way to Pavia.  Vialli senior was the millionaire owner of a construction company.

He was as keen on football as any young child and played endless games with his sister and three brothers in a large courtyard at the back of the castle. His first formal steps towards a football career came after he had entered the Cristo Re oratory, an educational institution in Cremona, which had a football team and links to others, including Pizzighettone, a regional team from Cremona province. After a few games there, his talent as a striker was quickly picked up on the Cremonese radar and made his senior debut at the age of 16.

Fired by Vialli’s goals, Cremonese jumped from Serie C to Serie A in four seasons. Vialli enjoyed his time there and was often seen around the city, zipping about on his Vespa scooter with the girlfriend from childhood, Giovanna, on the back.  He would sometimes hang out with the club’s fans at the Bar Rio in the centre of Cremona.

Vialli played alongside fellow striker Fabrizio
Ravanelli (left) during his four years with Juventus

But bigger things beckoned. In 1984, at the age of 20, Vialli signed for Sampdoria, making the acquaintance for the first time of his new teammate, Roberto Mancini.  The coach, Vujadin Boskov, treated him like a son and gave him the confidence to form a deadly partnership with Mancini. In 1991, Vialli was top scorer with 19 goals and helped the club to win both the Scudetto and the Italian Super Cup.

In June 1992, with Sampdoria wishing they could keep him but also needing a cash influx, Vialli moved to Juventus for a world record fee, the equivalent of £12.5 million. He made a slow start, his first two seasons disrupted by injuries, but under coach Marcello Lippi he won the domestic league and cup double and the UEFA Cup and both main domestic trophies as well as the Uefa Cup and before making his final appearance in the 1996 Champions League final in Rome, when a Juventus side captained by him beat Ajax of Holland. 

Vialli’s international career ended in 1992, essentially because of his poor relationship with Arrigo Sacchi, the manager who succeeded Azeglio Vicini after the 1990 World Cup and took Italy to the final in USA ‘94. 

After moving to Chelsea, he settled in London, buying a house in Belgravia, marrying an English interior designer, Cathryn White-Cooper, with whom he has two daughters, and later moving to Hampstead.  A smoker even in his playing days, Vialli was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2017. He announced in April 2020 that he had been given the all-clear.

Vialli collaborated with his friend, football journalist Gabriele Marcotti, in writing The Italian Job: A Journey to the Heart of Two Great Footballing Cultures, which discusses the differences between English and Italian football. He donated the proceeds of the book to a charitable foundation he founded together with player-turned-politician Massimo Mauro to raise funds for research into cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is also known as motor neurone disease.

Mancini, who became Italy’s head coach in 2018 after their failure to qualify for the World Cup finals in Russia, turned to Vialli to be part of his backroom team in 2019, giving him the title of delegation chief, a position unfilled since Luigi Riva's retirement in 2013.

UPDATE: Italy won the final of the delayed Euro 2020 championships two days after this article was originally published, defeating host nation England on penalties at Wembley. Vialli shared the glory with Mancini, his close friend since they played together at Sampdoria.

Sadly, Vialli's cancer returned late in 2021. The disease was kept under control initially but his condition deteriorated in December 2022, causing him to be readmitted to hospital in London. He died on 6 January, 2023, aged just 58.

Vialli grew up in the ancient Castello di
Belgioioso between Cremona and Pavia

Travel tip:

It is thought the Castello di Belgioioso was founded by Galeazzo II Visconti in the second half of the 14th century as part of an extensive area owned by the family in the territory where the village of Belgioioso later arose. In the 18th century the castle belonged to Don Antonio Barbiano, the first prince of Belgioioso, who was responsible for the many improvements to the complex.Lombard nobility often met there to celebrate lavish receptions.  Today the castle is home to exhibitions, cultural events, exhibitions and fairs, as well as becoming a popular venue for weddings.

The fishing village and resort of Bogliasco is close
to where Vialli lived in his time at Sampdoria

Travel tip: 

During his time at Sampdoria, lived close to the Ligurian resort of Bogliasco, situated just 11km (7 miles) east of Genoa in an area known as the Golfo Paradiso. Bogliasco is not so well known as the beautiful Camogli or exclusive Portofino further down the coast, yet is an attractive port village with characteristic pastel-coloured houses lining a sweep of sandy beach. Bogliasco has many good restaurants, is accessible by train along the railway line that hugs the coast and has three important art collections in the Frugone, Wolfsoniana and Galleria d'Arte Moderna.

Also on this day:

1879: The birth of violinist and composer Ottorino Respighi

1897: The of former NATO Secretary-General Manlio Brosio

1950: The birth of tennis champion Adriano Panatta

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Aurelio De Laurentiis - entrepreneur

Film producer who owns SSC Napoli

Aurelio De Laurentiis followed his father
and uncle into the movie industry

The film producer and football club owner Aurelio De Laurentiis was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.

The nephew of Dino De Laurentiis, the producer credited with giving Italian cinema an international platform with his backing for Federico Fellini’s Oscar-winning 1954 movie La Strada, Aurelio teamed up with his father, Luigi, to form the production company Filmauro in 1975.

The company has produced or distributed more than 400 films in Italy and around the world, working with directors such as Mario Monicelli, Ettore Scola, Pupi Avati, Damiano Damiani and Roberto Benigni among the big names of Italian cinema, as well as internationally-acclaimed names such as Blake Edwards, Peter Weir, Luc Besson, Eduardo Sanchez and Ridley Scott.

Aurelio has won numerous honours for his achievements in the film industry, including, in 2005, the Nastro d'Argento as Best Producer for What Will Become of Us - What Will Become of Us?- and all in that night (released in America as Adventures in Babysitting).  

Filmauro is also the company behind a sequence of Christmas comedies that have proved massively popular with Italian audiences since they were launched in the 1980s. 

Yet he is perhaps even better known for buying up a bankrupt SSC Napoli football club in 2004 and taking it from Serie C - the third tier of Italian football - to the Champions League in just five years.

The badge of the Serie A club
SSC Napoli, rescued by De Laurentiis

With roots in Torre Annunziata, the historic former Roman city on the Bay of Naples where his father and uncle were born, De Laurentiis always regarded Naples as his spiritual home, even though he was born in Rome.

When SSC Napoli went bust after 78 years of history, with debts of 70 million euros, it was De Laurentiis who stepped in with dreams of restoring the club to its glory years of the 1980s, when Diego Maradona was the fulcrum of a team that became Italian champions for the first time in 1987 and won a second title three years later, landing a first major European trophy via the UEFA Cup in between.

He had to start at a lowly level, launching a new club called Napoli Soccer after the Italian football federation banned the use of the historic SSC Napoli name and placing the new entity in Serie C1, the third tier in the Italian football pyramid.

But after hiring Edoardo Reja, a coach who had won promotion for Brescia, Vicenza and Cagliari, the new club gained promotion from Serie C at the second attempt and Serie B at the first, returning to Serie A at the start of the 2007-08 season.

Walter Mazzarri, the manager who took
Napoli back into Europe

By then, De Laurentiis had bought the rights to use the SSC Napoli name and proved himself a shrewd judge of coaches by appointing Walter Mazzarri in October 2009 and signing the attacking trio of Ezequiel Lavezzi, Edinson Cavani and Marek Hamšík. 

Under Mazzari’s guidance, Napoli finished third in Serie A in 2011 to qualify for the Champions League and won the Coppa Italia for the first time since the Maradona era the following season.

The Spaniard Rafael Benitez, famous for winning the UEFA Cup with Valencia and the Champions League with Liverpool, followed Mazzari and brought De Laurentiis a second Coppa Italia and a Supercoppa Italia as well as two more seasons in the Champions League.

Benitez’s successor Maurizio Sarri steered them to runners-up spot in Serie A twice in four seasons between 2015 and 2018, each time behind Juventus, and third in the other, before giving way to three-times Champions League winner Carlo Ancelotti, under whom they were second again in 2019 and won a third Coppa Italia in 2020.

With Gennaro Gattuso in charge, Napoli missed out on a Champions League place in 2020-21 and will have to be content with a Europa League spot again in 2021-22 after finishing fifth in the season just ended, after which De Laurentiis announced that Gattuso is to leave the club.

In 2018, De Laurentiis expanded his football empire by acquiring another bankrupt former Serie A club in Bari, once Napoli’s rivals for superiority in southern Italy.

Should Bari, currently in Serie C, find their way back to Serie A after an exile of more than 10 years, De Laurentiis may face a problem as the Italian federation (FIGC) does not permit the ownership of more than once top-flight club, although the club president is actually Luigi De Laurentiis junior, Aurelio’s eldest son by his Swiss-born second wife, Jacqueline Baudit.

In September 2020, De Laurentiis revealed that he had tested positive for Covid-19, raising fears for his health given his age. Happily, the illness was short-lived and he has since made a full recovery.

Visitors to Torre Annunziata can see the remains of
the Villa Oplontis, an ancient Roman complex

Travel tip:

Torre Annunziata, where De Laurentiis has family roots, is a city in the metropolitan area of Naples. Close to Mount Vesuvius, the original city was destroyed in the eruption of 79 AD and a new one built over the ruins. Its name derives from a watch tower - torre - built to warn people of imminent Saracen raids and a chapel consecrated to the Annunziata (Virgin Mary). It became a centre for pasta production - in which Dino De Laurentiis worked before entering the movie business - in the early 19th century. The Villa Poppaea, also known as Villa Oplontis, believed to be owned by Nero, was discovered about 10 metres below ground level just outside the town and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hotels in Torre Annunziata with Booking.com

A view of Piazza Ferrarese, which overlooks the
harbour in the older part of the city of Bari

Travel tip:

Bari is the second largest urban area after Naples in the south of the Italy. It has a busy port and some expansive industrial areas but plenty of history, too, especially in the old city - Bari Vecchia - which sits on a headland between two harbours.  Fanning out around two Romanesque churches, the Cattedrale di San Sebino and the Basilica of St Nicholas, the area is a maze of medieval streets with many historical buildings and plenty of bars and restaurants.  There is also a castle, the Castello Svevo.  The more modern part of the city is known as the Centro Murattiano, or the Murat quarter, in that it was built during the period in the early 19th century in which Joachim Murat, for a long time Napoleon's most trusted military strategist, ruled the Kingdom of Naples, of which Bari was a part.

Find a hotel in Bari with Booking.com

Also on this day:

1494: The birth of painter Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo

1671: The birth of Gian Gastone de’ Medici, the last of the dynasty to rule Florence

1751: The birth of Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia

1981: The birth of celebrity chef Simone Rugiati

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Giancarlo Antognoni - footballer

Midfield star recovered from horrific injury to win World Cup

Giancarlo Antognoni made more
than 400 appearances for Fiorentina

The footballer Giancarlo Antognoni, who won 73 international caps for his country and was a member of the Italy team that won the 1982 World Cup in Spain, was born on this day in 1954 in Marsciano, a medieval town in Umbria, some 25km (16 miles) south of the regional capital, Perugia.

Antognoni, who spent most of his club career with Fiorentina and still works for the club today, was regarded as one of the most talented midfield players of his generation, but had the misfortune to miss Italy’s triumph against West Germany in the 1982 final, having suffered a broken foot in the semi-final against Poland.

Nonetheless, he made a major contribution to the performances that carried the azzurri through to the final, including the victories over holders Argentina and tournament favourites Brazil in the second phase. As the team's main playmaker, he set up numerous goalscoring opportunities for his teammates. Throughout the 1982 tournament, only Brazil's Zico and West Germany's Pierre Littbarski made more passes that directly led to goals. 

Antognoni himself had a goal incorrectly ruled out for offside against Brazil, although Italy still came out on top thanks to Paolo Rossi’s stunning hat-trick in a famous 3–2 victory.  Antognoni’s pass set up one of Rossi’s goals. 

Yet nine months earlier, some feared Antogoni would not play again, let alone in the following summer’s World Cup, after he suffered an horrific and life-threatening injury playing for Fiorentina against Genoa in Serie A.

In trying to score a goal, Antognoni collided with Genoa goalkeeper Silvano Martina, taking the full force of Martina’s knee against his head. He was knocked out, swallowing his tongue in the process and suffering a cardiac arrest. 

A stricken Antognoni is attended by Genoa team
doctor Pierluigi Gatto and others after his accident

It was only the swift actions of Pierluigi Gatto - the Genoa team doctor - that saved his life, the medic instantly recognising what had happened, freeing Antognoni’s tongue and performing CPR on the pitch to restart his heart, which had stopped for at least 30 seconds. Antognoni remained in a coma for two days and it was found that he had also suffered a fractured skull in two places.

Fiorentina fans feared their player’s career was over and Martina was the subject of criminal proceedings after a review of the incident deemed that he had been needlessly reckless in his attempt to deny Antognoni a goalscoring opportunity. A court hearing found Martina guilty of common assault but Antognoni refused to put his name to an official complaint, which meant that Martina escaped punishment.

Amazingly, Antognoni recovered so well from both the fractured skull and his cardiac arrest that he was playing again by the following March and faced Martina again in the second match of his comeback. In an act of outstanding sportsmanship, Antognoni sought out the Genoa ‘keeper before the kick-off and the two shook hands.

Antognoni’s earliest memories of playing football were on dirt pitches in Prepo, a village on the outskirts of Perugia. His father owned a bar in the city that was the headquarters of the local branch of the AC Milan supporters club and Antognoni grew up idolising the Milan star Gianni Rivera.

Antognoni's skills helped Italy win the
World Cup in Spain in 1982

The first major club to take an interest in him was Torino, although after watching him in a friendly they decided he was not for them. He remained in Piedmont, however, beginning his career with Asti in Serie D at the age of 16. His performances soon attracted attention, however, and when another former AC Milan legend, the Swede Nils Liedholm, asked him to sign for Fiorentina, the young Antognoni jumped at the chance.

He made his debut in Italy's Serie A in October 1972 and went on to make 412 appearances for the viola, scoring 61 goals. He won the Coppa Italia in 1975 and narrowly missed out on the Serie A title in 1982 season, losing out to rivals Juventus by a single point. He holds the record for the most appearances in Serie A for Fiorentina, with 341 games between 1972 and 1987.

Antognoni’s international career, which began in 1974, gained momentum under World Cup-winning coach Enzo Bearzot, who took him to the 1978 World Cup in Argentina and picked him again for the 1980 European championships, the azzurri finishing fourth in both tournaments. By the 1982 World Cup, he was Italy’s first-choice No 10. He is said to have worn the No 10 shirt for Italy more times than any other player, more than Alessandro Del Piero, Roberto Baggio, Francesco Totti or even his idol, Rivera.

After his international career ended in 1983, Antognoni remained with Fiorentina until 1987, after which he had two seasons playing in Switzerland for Lausanne Sports before hanging up his boots in 1989 at the age of 35.

Within a year, he was back with Fiorentina, initially as a scout but later as general manager. He dramatically resigned in 2001 in protest at the sacking of the club’s Turkish first-team coach, Fatih Terim. After a spell working for the Italian national federation in youth football development, he returned to the viola in 2017 and since 2018 has had the title of club manager.

The Torri Bolli is one of three medieval towers
in Antognoni's home town of Marsciano

Travel tip:

The town of Marsciano, where Antognoni was born, has its origins in Etruscan and Roman times. In around 1000 it was a fief of the Lombard family of Bulgarelli.  It is notable for its three medieval towers: the Torre Bolli (1217), the Torre Boccali (1228) and the Torre di Porta Vecchia (1271), which have been renovated. In the heart of the old town - Marsciano vecchia - is the parish church dedicated to San Giovanni Battista. Nowadays, it is among the most important agricultural-industrial centres of Umbria and the largest Umbrian producer of tiles and bricks.

The Stadio Artemio Franchi is an atmospheric
venue when packed with Fiorentina supporters

Travel tip:

Antognoni’s club, Fiorentina, play at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, one of Italy’s most famous stadiums and one of the earliest projects undertaken by the architect Pier Luigi Nervi, who would go on to design landmark buildings all over the world. The stadium is built entirely of reinforced concrete - the medium that became Nervi’s hallmark - with a 70m (230 ft) tower that bears the stadium's flagstaff. The tower is called the Tower of Marathon. The record crowd for a football match at the stadium in 58,271 but the stadium has also hosted more than 42,000 people for pop concerts by David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen.

Also on this day:

April Fool’s Day, Italian style

1946: The birth of AC Milan and Italy football coach Arrigo Sacchi

1953: The birth of AC Milan football coach Alberto Zaccheroni

(Marsciano picture by Umbria ws via Wikimedia Commons)

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AC Milan agree world record fee for Ruud Gullit

Signing of Dutch star sparked new era of success

Ruud Gullit's arrival at AC Milan signalled 
the start of a new period of success

A new golden era in the history of the AC Milan football club effectively began on this day in 1987 when the club agreed a world record transfer fee of £6 million - the equivalent of about £14.5 million (€16.8 million) today - to sign the attacking midfielder Ruud Gullit from the Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven.

The captain of The Netherlands international team that would be crowned European champions the following year, Gullit was regarded as one of the world’s best players at the time and his arrival in Milan caused huge excitement.

Thousands of Milan supporters turned out to greet him on the day he arrived in the city, so many that the car taking him from the airport to the club’s headquarters needed a police escort with sirens blaring in order to forge a path through the crowds.

Those fans correctly sensed that Gullit’s signing would bring a change of fortunes for the rossoneri after a dark period in their history.

Traditionally one of Italian football’s most powerful clubs, Milan had won the scudetto - the Italian championship - for the 10th time in 1979 but the following year were embroiled in the match-fixing scandal known as Totonero and as a punishment were relegated to Serie B - the second division - for the first time in their history.

Arrigo Sacchi guided Milan
to two European Cups

A difficult few years followed, taking the club to the brink of bankruptcy until the entrepreneur and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi - later to be Italy’s prime minister four times - stepped in as their saviour.

Berlusconi hired the up-and-coming coach Arrigo Sacchi to look after the team and was prepared to back up his ambitions for the club by spending big in the transfer market.

Gullit, whose game combined physical power with deft footwork, pinpoint passing and a striker’s eye for goal, signed within a few weeks of his Netherlands team-mate Marco van Basten, who had been a prolific goalscorer for Ajax.  The fee for Gullit broke the world record set by rivals Napoli when they signed Diego Maradona from Barcelona for £5 million in 1984. 

The signing of the two high-profile Dutch stars, who would be joined by another in compatriot Frank Rijkaard the following year, represented a statement of intent by Berlusconi as Sacchi built a team that also boasted some exceptional home-grown talent in Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Costacurta, Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Donadoni.

After finishing the 1987-87 season with PSV as their leading scorer with 22 goals and a second consecutive championship medal, Gullit made his Serie A debut for Milan in August 1987 in a 3-1 win away to Pisa, scoring Milan’s second goal with a header. Van Basten would add a third from the penalty spot.

With Gullit scoring nine goals from 29 appearances, Milan won the scudetto for the first time in nine years – finishing three points ahead of Maradona’s Napoli, who had won the title for the first time in their history in the previous year.

Gullit (centre) and Dutch team-mates Frank Rijkaard
(left) and Marco Van Basten transformed Milan

During his time with Milan - with Sacchi and then Fabio Capello in charge - Gullit won another two Serie titles, two Supercoppe Italiane and two European Cups. He scored 56 goals in 171 games along the way.

Sacchi’s team reached their peak in the 1988-89 season. Although they finished only third in Serie A, behind city rivals Inter-Milan and Napoli, they produced two of the best performances by any team to win the European Cup, thrashing Real Madrid 5-0 in the second leg of their semi-final before demolishing Steaua Bucharest 4-0 in the final at Barcelona's Nou Camp, with Gullit and Van Basten each scoring twice in front of 98,000 fans.  

Under Sacchi's guidance, Milan won the European Cup again in 1989-90, defeating Benfica in the final, Van Basten scoring the only goal.

Gullit, who went on to play for Sampdoria and Chelsea after leaving San Siro, later said that the 1989 Milan team was the best he had played in. 

Although Sacchi left to take over as head coach of the Italian national team in 1991, guiding the azzurri to the World Cup final in 1994 (famously losing to Brazil on penalties after talisman Roberto Baggio’s miss), AC Milan’s success continued with four Serie A titles in five years and the 1993-94 Champions League title under Capello, which meant the club were champions of Italy six times and of Europe three times in just nine seasons.

AC Milan train at the Milanello Sports
Centre 40km northwest of the city

Travel tip:

Although AC Milan’s home ground is the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, often known as San Siro after the suburb of Milan in which it is situated, the club’s day-to-day base is Milanello Sports Centre, commonly referred to as simply Milanello, where the team trains. Built in 1963, the centre, which has six outdoor pitches, is spread over 160,000 square metres (1,700,000 sq ft), which includes a pinewood and a lake. It is situated close to the towns of Carnago, Cassano Magnago and Cairate, in the province of Varese, about 40km (25 miles) northwest of Milan. Milanello has in the past been used by the Italian national team in their preparations for major championships. 

Hotels in Carnago by Booking.com

The impressive trophy room at AC Milan's
Mondo Milan museum in Milan

Travel tip:

Football fans can learn more about Arrigo Sacchi's success and that of all the AC Milan teams in the club's 117-year history by looking round the Mondo Milan Museum, which has a large collection of historic memorabilia as well as many interactive features.  It can be found within the Casa Milan, the club's new city headquarters - not to be confused with its stadium - in the Portello district, about 6km (4 miles) northwest of the city centre. The museum includes a trophy room that has replicas and originals of the club’s 42 major trophies, including an enormous replica of the Champions League trophy that measures 3m tall and weighs 800kg.

Also on this day:

1474: The birth of Saint Angela Merici, who founded the monastic Ursuline Order

1858: The saints day of nun Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello

1918: The birth of Alberto Marvelli, wartime Good Samaritan 

(Milanello picture by Razzairpina via Wikimedia Commons)

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Gianluca Festa - footballer

Sardinian became a favourite in England

Gianluca Festa is currently coach of the
Greek Super League side AEL

The footballer and coach Gianluca Festa, who played 177 matches in Italy’s Serie A but is best remembered as the first Italian defender to sign for a club in England’s Premier League, was born on this day in 1969 in Cagliari.

Festa joined Middlesbrough in January 1997 after manager Bryan Robson agreed to pay Inter-Milan £2.7 million for the centre-back, who joined his Italian compatriot Fabrizio Ravanelli at the northeast England club.

Ravanelli had arrived in England the previous summer as one of a number of Italian stars to move from Serie A, a sign that the Premier League was beginning to challenge Serie A for the right to be called Europe’s top league.  Chelsea had signed Gianluca Vialli from Juventus and Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio, to be joined by Parma’s Gianfranco Zola later in the autumn, and Sheffield Wednesday had bought Festa’s former Inter teammate Benito Carbone.

Four of those five were forwards - Di Matteo operated in midfield - and Middlesbrough, who had been promoted in 1995 but were finding their second season difficult, broke new ground by tapping into Italy’s reputation for producing top-quality defenders.

Festa was unable to prevent Middlesbrough’s relegation in the 1996-97 season but helped them reach the final of the FA Cup, scoring against Chesterfield in the semi-final and having a goal controversially disallowed for offside against Chelsea in the final at Wembley, which the London team won 2-0 with Di Matteo one of the goalscorers.

Festa spent five and a half seasons
in the red shirt of Middlesbrough

Ravanelli left to join Marseille at the end of that season but Festa stayed, helping Middlesbrough win promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt and to stay in the top division throughout the rest of his time with the club, where he remained for five and a half seasons, becoming a favourite with supporters.

A multi-talented sportsman who excelled in martial arts and was a national junior champion at tennis, Festa joined his hometown club Cagliari as a schoolboy, making his senior debut in 1986 aged 17. Cagliari dropped to the third tier of Italy’s football pyramid at the start of Festa’s career but after appointing Claudio Ranieri as coach won consecutive promotions and were back in Serie A for the 1990-91 season.

Festa’s outstanding performances soon attracted the attention of other clubs and signed for Inter in 1993. He did not impress coach Osvaldo Bagnoli, who transferred him to Roma, but was back at San Siro within a year and shone under new coach Ottavio Bianchi, going on to make 70 appearances for the nerazzurri before earning his move to England.

After leaving Teesside in 2002, he helped another English team, Portsmouth, win promotion to the Premier League but did not play for them in the top division, instead returning to Cagliari, taking part in another promotion-winning season before winding down his playing career by turning out for a number of local teams in Sardinia while preparing for a career in coaching.

Following a short stint as assistant manager at Cagliari in his first appointment, Festa managed the small Lombardy club Lumezzane before briefly returning to England, where Leeds United’s Italian chairman Massimo Cellino invited him to help with training sessions and considered appointing him manager, although in the end he chose another candidate.

Back in Italy, Festa had two unsuccessful spells as head coach of Cagliari and then Como. He is currently in his second term in charge of AEL in the Greek Super League, based in the city of Larissa.

Cagliari's historic centre has
many steep, narrow alleys

Travel tip:

Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, an industrial centre and one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean. Yet it is also a city of considerable beauty and history, most poetically described by the novelist DH Lawrence when he visited in the 1920s. As he approached from the sea, Lawrence set his eyes on the confusion of domes, palaces and ornamental facades which, he noted, seemed to be piled on top of one another. He compared it to Jerusalem, describing it as 'strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.’  What he saw was Cagliari’s charming historic centre, known as Castello, inside which the city’s university, cathedral and several museums and palaces - plus many bars and restaurants - are squeezed into a network of narrow alleys.

The spectacular Stadio Giuseppe Meazza at San
Siro is home to Inter and AC Milan

Travel tip:

Gianluca Festa had success in Italy with Internazionale, the club usually known as Inter-Milan, playing at the magnificent Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, in the San Siro district of northwest Milan. The stadium, which can accommodate almost 80,000 spectators, was completed in its original form in 1926. A number of extensive renovations, the last of which was completed ahead of the 1990 World Cup finals, gave the stadium its distinctive appearance, with its top tier supported by 11 cylindrical towers which incorporate spiral walkways. Giuseppe Meazza, from whom the stadium takes its name, spent 14 years as a player and three terms as manager at Inter.  Since 1947, Inter and their city rivals AC Milan have shared the stadium.

Also on this day:

44BC: The death of Julius Caesar

1673: The death of artist Salvator Rosa

1738: The birth of criminologist Cesare Beccaria

1849: The death of hyperpolyglot Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti

(Cagliari picture by Juli Kosolapova on Unsplash; Stadio Giuseppe Meazza by Clemens Teichmann from Pixabay)

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