Roberto Boninsegna - footballer

Prolific striker who helped Italy reach 1970 World Cup final

Roberto Boninsegna in the colours of Inter Milan, 
the club he dreamed of playing for as a child

The footballer Roberto Boninsegna, a prolific striker who scored 171 goals  in 14 years in Italy’s Serie A, was born on this day in 1943 in Mantua in Lombardy.

Boninsegna, whose relentlessly tenacious attacking style made him a fan favourite despite his relatively small physical stature, was at his peak during a seven-season spell with Inter Milan from 1969 to 1976, during which he scored 113 goals in 197 Serie A appearances.

He was also a prominent member of the Italy national team at the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico, scoring the opening goal for the azzurri in their epic 4-3 extra-time victory over West Germany in the semi-final. 

Boninsegna was also responsible for Italy’s first-half equaliser against Pele's Brazil in the final, before the South Americans, universally acclaimed as one of the finest teams in international football history, overwhelmed them in the second half, winning 4-1.

His aerial prowess, which saw him regularly outjump taller defenders to ensure his head was first to the ball, earned him the nickname Bonimba from the celebrated football writer Gianni Brera. It stuck with fans, even though the player himself did not care for it because it drew on an obsolete word used to describe circus dwarfs.

Boninsegna is said to have entered the world during adversity, his mother, Elsa, giving birth during an Allied bombing raid on Mantua during World War Two.

Always an Inter Milan fan - he wore the blue and black nerazzurri shirt under his club colours while playing youth football for his local team - Boninsegna suffered the heartbreak of rejection when he joined Inter’s youth programme only to be discarded at an early stage in his development.

The Tuscan club Prato eventually gave him his start in the professional game in 1963. His next move took many miles from home to Basilicata, spending a season with Potenza before returning north to join Varese, where he made his Serie A debut in 1965. 

Boninsegna's reputation soared after he
teamed up with Luigi Riva at Cagliari

His breakthrough came after he joined Cagliari in 1966. Forming a deadly partnership with the azzurri great, Luigi Riva, he scored 23 goals in 83 appearances for the Sardinian team, showcasing his knack for finding space and converting chances. Cagliari finished runners-up in Serie A in 1968-69.

Boninsegna missed out on Cagliari’s great triumph of the following campaign, when they lifted the scudetto for the only time in the club’s history, having achieved the dream previously dashed when Inter signed him in 1969 for a fee of 600 million lire, equivalent roughly to €13.7 million today and a colossal sum in terms of football transfers at the time.

With Inter, Boninsegna enjoyed considerable success, helping the nerazzurri win the scudetto in 1970-71, a season in which he was Serie A’s capocannoniere - top scorer - with 24 goals. In total, across his time at San Siro, he made 281 appearances (197 in Serie A , 55 in the Coppa Italia and 29 in Europe) and delivered 171 goals (113 in Serie A, 36 in the Coppa Italia and 22 in Europe).

Yet his spell with Inter also included controversy after his part in what would be dubbed La partita della lattina - the Match of the Can.  This was the first leg of the European Cup round-of-16 match between Inter Milan and Borussia Mönchengladbach in Germany.

In the 29th minute, with Inter trailing 2–1, Boninsegna was about to take a throw-in when he collapsed to the ground after appearing to be hit on the head by a Coca-Cola can thrown from the stands. 

Boninsegna was stretchered off. Inter officials demanded the match be abandoned but the Dutch referee, Jef Dorpmans, allowed play to continue. However, the Inter team effectively refused to compete, and Mönchengladbach went on to thrash them 7–1, a result that shocked European football.

Boningsegna helped Italy reach the
final of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico

When Inter lodged a formal protest with UEFA, arguing that the incident had unfairly disrupted the match and endangered player safety, a furious row developed, with some German fans and even club officials claiming that Boninsegna had exaggerated the extent to which he was hurt. 

There was also confusion over whether the can that hit Boninsegna was full, as the Italian team’s officials said, or empty, which some on the German side believed.  With no TV cameras capturing the incident on film, it was not possible to review what had happened.

Inter’s vice-president, lawyer Giuseppe Prisco, failed in his argument that the match should be awarded to Inter, UEFA deciding instead that it be replayed. However, in another controversial twist, the European governing body allowed the scheduled second leg in Milan to go ahead before the first leg was replayed. Inter won it 4-2. 

When the sides met again on neutral ground at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Inter simply had to protect their lead to progress to the quarter-finals and the contest ended goalless. Inter went on to reach the final but were beaten 2-0 by Ajax, for whom Johann Cruyff scored both goals.

Boninsegna’s Inter career ended with a transfer to Juventus in 1976 in a deal that saw Juventus striker Pietro Anastasi switch to San Siro. Inter judged that, at nearly 34, Boninsegna had his best years behind him, yet he went on to enjoy a renaissance in Turin, helping his new club win Serie A twice, a Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup - the famous club’s first European trophy - before ending his professional career with Verona.

For the Italian national team, he won 22 caps between 1967 and 1974, scoring nine goals.

After retiring as a player in 1981, Boninsegna had a number of coaching roles, including at his home town club, Mantua, where he also served as technical director and vice-president. However, his post-playing career never reached the heights he touched as a player. 

Nonetheless, his legacy as a player remains intact. He is remembered not only for his goals but for his resilience, having risen from wartime hardship to become a symbol of Italian footballing excellence.

Boninsegna, now 82, still lives in Mantua. Even decades after his retirement, his name evokes memories of powerful strikes, dramatic goals, and unwavering determination.

Mantua's Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the city's
powerful Gonzaga family for almost 400 years

Travel tip:

Mantua, where Roberto Boninsegna was born and still lives, is an atmospheric and historic city in Lombardy, just over 130km (81 miles) southeast of Milan. In the Renaissance heart of the city is Piazza Mantegna, where the 15th century Basilica of Sant’Andrea houses the tomb of the artist, Andrea Mantegna, arguably the city’s most famous son, although the Roman poet Virgil was born in what is now Pietole, just a few kilometres outside the city. The basilica was originally built to accommodate the large number of pilgrims who came to Mantua to see a precious relic, an ampoule containing what were believed to be drops of Christ’s blood mixed with earth. This was claimed to have been collected at the site of his crucifixion by a Roman soldier.  Mantua was also the seat between 1328 and 1707 of the powerful Gonzaga family, who significantly expanded the city’s Palazzo Ducale, transforming it into their official residence and one of the largest palatial complexes in Europe.  The palace’s Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna, depicting the life of Eleonora’s ancestor, Ludovico Gonzaga, and his family in the 15th century. The beautiful backgrounds of imaginary cities and ruins reflect Mantegna’s love of classical architecture.

Hotels in Mantua by Hotels.com

Milan's famous Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in the
San Siro district is earmarked for demolition

Travel tip:

During his Inter Milan career, Roberto Boninsegna became one of the many legendary players to have graced the colossal 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 but its days are numbered in its present iconic form. The two Milan clubs have jointly purchased the stadium and surrounding land from the Municipality of Milan for €197 million, ending nearly 80 years of public ownership. The clubs plan to demolish most of the existing stadium to make way for a new, state-of-the-art arena with a capacity of 71,500 seats. It is planned that the new venue will be ready in time for the 2032 European Championships finals, which Italy will host jointly with Turkey. 

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More reading:

Giuseppe Meazza, the Inter striker who gave his name to the San Siro stadium

Luigi Riva, Italy's record goalscorer and hero of Cagliari

Sandro Mazzola, the Inter great whose father perished in the Superga disaster

Also on this day:

1868: The death of composer Gioachino Rossini

1894: The death of Sister Agostina Livia Pietrantoni, a nurse murdered by a patient later made a saint

1907: The birth of Princess Giovanna of Italy - Tsaritsa of Bulgaria

1914: The birth of film director Alberto Lattuada

1936: The birth of novelist and short story writer Dacia Maraini

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Luigi ‘Gigi’ Peronace - football agent

Calabrian facilitated string of transfers to Italy

Luigi 'Gigi' Peronace is seen by some
as football's original players' agent

The football agent Luigi ‘Gigi’ Peronace, who brokered the transfer deals that saw leading British stars from John Charles to Liam Brady play in Italy’s Serie A, was born in the Calabrian seaside town of Soverato on this day in 1925.

Agents are commonplace in football today but they were an almost unknown phenomenon when Peronace set up in business in the 1950s and he is widely accepted as the first of his kind, certainly in terms of building a ‘stable’ of clients.

The charismatic Peronace’s ability to charm all parties in transfer deals - buyer, seller and player - led to him becoming an influential figure in football in both Italy and the United Kingdom over a 25-year period.

Charles, the Welsh giant whose talents persuaded Juventus to almost double the British transfer fee record when they paid Leeds United £65,000 for his services in 1957, remains Peronace’s most famous deal, although he was instrumental in introducing other big-name British players to the Italian game, including the prolific Chelsea and England striker Jimmy Greaves and Scotland’s Denis Law.

Peronace’s first taste of football was as a player in the 1940s with the Calabrian team Reggina, for whom he kept goal despite being quite a small man. Evidence of his skills as a Mr Fixit were emerging even then, as a teenager, when he arranged football matches between English and Australian soldiers and local Calabrian teams.

After the end of the Second World War, Peronace moved to Turin to study engineering. Already with good English, he took a job with Juventus, who needed an interpreter to help their new Scottish coach, William Chalmers. When Chalmers was dismissed after one season, the Turin club hired an Englishman, Jesse Carver, to look after the team.

John Charles, who joined Juventus
from Leeds United in 1957

Carver likewise did not stay long, despite winning the Serie A title in his first season in charge. He soon returned to England to manage West Bromwich Albion. But he was back in Italy a year later and invited Peronace to work with him again at Lazio. It was Carver who first told Peronace about John Charles, a tall, powerfully built man who had been converted from a centre-half by Leeds United to one of the most prolific centre-forwards in England.

Intrigued, as soon as his time at Lazio had ended Peronace travelled to England to see Charles in person, contacted the Juventus president Umberto Agnelli and persuaded the Turin club that they should spend whatever it took to sign him.

It took Peronace two years to convince Leeds to sell and Charles to move, but in August 1957, the deal was done. It made headlines, of course, not just for the size of transfer fee but for what the player himself was offered. Juventus gave him an apartment for his family, a Fiat car and a £10,000 signing-on fee - this at a time when the signing-on fee for players moving between English clubs could be as little as £10.

The Charles deal was not Peronace’s first. While wooing Charles and Leeds, he had arranged for South African-born Eddie Firmani, who had Italian heritage, to join Sampdoria from Charlton Athletic. But it was the Charles transfer that gave him credibility.

The Welshman would go on to score 108 goals in 155 matches for Juventus, helping them win the scudetto - the colloquial name for the Serie A trophy - three times and the domestic cup competition, the Coppa Italia, twice.

Peronace helped Charles settle in Turin but in 1961 he returned to England, moved into a plush apartment in Knightsbridge and from there pulled off more headline-making deals. He helped Aston Villa’s Gerry Hitchens move to Inter-Milan, persuaded AC Milan to sign Jimmy Greaves, and Torino to take both Denis Law and the English-born, Scottish-raised striker Joe Baker.

Peronace's close friend, the 
pipe-smoking Enzo Bearzot

While Hitchins, like Charles, enjoyed significant success, the last-named trio failed to settle in Italy, although it was to the advantage of Peronace, who negotiated their transfers again, helping Greaves return to London with Tottenham, Law team up with Matt Busby at Manchester United and Baker make a fresh start with Arsenal.

Always immaculately dressed in the most expensive Italian clothes, Peronace’s natural charm enabled him to befriend the most powerful figures in both English and Italian football, which opened doors in both countries. This was especially useful to him after the abolition of English maximum wage lessened the attraction to players of moving abroad.

A close friend of Sir Denis Follows, the secretary of the English Football Association, he used his contacts to help establish the Anglo-Italian Cup competition.

In Italy, he became a close friend of Enzo Bearzot and worked with him for the Italian Football Federation at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina.

Peronace would doubtless have been alongside Bearzot when Italy’s pipe-smoking coach guided the azzurri to their World Cup triumph in Spain 1982 had fate not tragically intervened 18 months earlier.

As the national team prepared to leave for a tournament in Montevideo, Uruguay in December 1980, Peronace was at a hotel in Rome when he suffered a fatal heart attack, dying in Bearzot’s arms at the age of just 55, leaving a wife and five children.  Liam Brady's move to Juventus from Arsenal earlier that year was the last high-profile deal in which he was involved.

The coast around Soverato is famed for an
abundance of white, sandy beaches

Travel tip:

Soverato, where Gigi Peronace was born, is situated on the Ionian coast of Calabria, about 37km (23 miles) south of the city of Catanzaro. If the map of Italy is seen as a leg, Soverato is at the point on the underside of the foot at the beginning of the big toe. With a population of fewer than 10,000 and an area of less than eight square kilometres, it is a small town yet thanks to its location on the Gulf of Squillace, notable for its white, sandy beaches, has become the wealthiest town per capita in Calabria with a bright modern promenade, apartment buildings and hotels and a botanical garden established on a reclaimed waste site in 1980. There is little of historical note save for a Pietà sculpted by Antonello Gagini from a block of Carrara marble in 1521, which was recovered from the nearby convent of Santa Maria della Pietà after an earthquake in 1783 and is now kept in the town’s church of Maria Santissima Addolorata. 

John Charles scoring a goal at a packed Stadio
Comunale, which was Juventus's home ground

Travel tip:

Juventus today play at the modern Allianz Stadium, their 41,500-capacity home in the Vallette borough of Turin, about 6km (3.7 miles) northwest from the city centre. When John Charles signed for them in 1957, Juventus shared the Stadio Comunale with city rivals Torino.  Situated around four kilometres south of the centre in the Santa Rita district, it was known as the Stadio Municipale Benito Mussolini after it was opened in 1933, being renamed Stadio Comunale after World War II, and further renamed the Stadio Olimpico after being chosen to host the opening and closing ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in 2006.  Torino left the stadium with Juventus in 1990 to play at the Stadio delle Alpi, forerunner of the Allianz, but returned to the Olimpico in 2006.

Also on this day:

1463: The birth of antiquities collector Cardinal Andrea della Valle

1466: The birth of banker Agostino Chigi

1797: The birth of opera composer Gaetano Donizetti

1850: The birth of soldier and cardinal Agostino Richelmy

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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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Sandro Mazzola - footballer

Tragedy instilled determination to succeed

Sandro Mazzola wore the famous
colours of Inter for his whole career

The footballer Sandro Mazzola, widely regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players after a glittering career with Internazionale of Milan and the Italian national team, was born on this day in 1942 in Turin.

A forward or attacking midfield player with all the attributes of the world’s best players, Mazzola won four Serie A titles and two European Cups for Inter-Milan, largely under the coaching of Helenio Herrero. His goals tally in Serie A games alone was 116 in 417 appearances. He was capped 70 times by the national team, part of the side that won the 1968 European championships and reached the World Cup final in 1970.

Mazzola always saw his success as a tribute to his father, Valentino, a brilliant player who was captain of the Torino team that was almost entirely wiped out in the Superga air disaster of 1949, when a plane carrying the team back from a friendly in Portugal crashed in thick fog into the rear wall of the Basilica of Superga, which overlooks the city of Turin.

His parents had divorced in 1946 but Valentino won custody of his son and instilled in him a love of football, as well as teaching him the basic skills. Sandro was only six when his father was killed and would later reveal that it was his desire to preserve the memory of their brief time together and build on Valentino’s legacy that drove him on to succeed.

He developed his career with Inter rather than Torino after a close friend of his father, the Inter forward Benito Lorenzi, persuaded his mother that Sandro and his brother, Ferruccio, should sign up as mascots for the Milan club.

Mazzola with his father, Valentino, a
short time before his father died 

Although they had little to do but lead the team out on match day, mascots were rewarded with a bonus if the team won of up to 10,000 lire, which helped their mother support them after they joined the Inter Milan youth academy. Both were good enough to sign professional contracts in 1960.

Ferruccio would find success elsewhere, with Venezia and then Lazio, but Sandro remained with Inter for his entire career, making his debut in 1961. It was hardly a glorious debut, a team packed with youth team players suffering a 9-1 thrashing by Juventus, although Mazzola did score Inter’s solitary goal, from the penalty spot.

Herrera’s teams were notoriously defensive, preferring to allow the opposing team to dominate possession with a view to hitting them on the counter-attack. Already feeling the pressure of expectation that came with being Valentino Mazzola’s son, Sandro knew he had to do outstanding things to make his presence count as an attacking player under Herrera’s regime.

He lacked the grace, perhaps, of his father, who was a sleek inside forward who scored a remarkable 118 goals in 195 league matches for Torino, but more than made up for it in speed and work-rate, while also possessing creativity and an eye for goal.

He became an integral part of Herrera’s team, which between 1963 and 1966 won Serie A three times, the European Cup twice and the Intercontinental Cup twice.  Mazzola scored twice as Inter beat Real Madrid in the 1964 European Cup final and was the top scorer in Serie A with 17 goals the following season.

Mazzola (left) with his Azzurri team-mate
and rival Gianni Rivera

Mazzola made his international debut at the age of 20 and played in his first World Cup in England three years later.  He was an outstanding performer as Italy became European champions in 1968 but found himself competing for a place with Gianni Rivera at the World Cup in 1970, when coach Ferruccio Valcareggi decided he could not play both together and devised a bizarre system by which Mazzola would play the first half of matches and Rivera the second.

The Azzurri reached the final in 1970 but lost 4-1 to Brazil and when Valcareggi finally decided he could accommodate both Mazzola and Rivera in his team at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany they were both past their prime.

After retiring from football as a player in 1977, Mazzola served Inter in various roles. He was sporting director between 1995 and 1999 and held a similar position with Torino between 2000 and 2003.  He has also worked in television for many years, holding the distinction of commentating for Telemontecarlo when Italy won the World Cup in Spain in 1982 and for Rai when they were victorious again at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The Stadio Giuseppe Meazza has been an iconic
sight in the Milan landscape for almost a century

Travel tip:

Sandro Mazzola played his football for Inter at the magnificent Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, the stadium Inter have shared with their city neighbours, AC Milan, in the San Siro district of northwest Milan since 1947. 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. The stadium was named after Giuseppe Meazza, who spent 14 years as a player and three terms as manager at Inter, in 1980.  The stadium’s days may be numbered, however, with plans submitted in May 2020 for a new stadium to be built next door to the current site.

The Basilica di Superga was built by architect
Filippo Juvarra on a mountain overlooking Turin

Travel tip:

The Superga Disaster that claimed the life of Valentino Mazzola and 30 others is commemorated with a simple memorial at the site of the crash, at the back of the magnificent 18th century Basilica di Superga, which overlooks the city of Turin.  Mounted on a wall, the damaged parts of which were never restored, is a large picture of the Grande Torino team, with a memorial stone that lists all the names of the victims of the disaster, under the heading I Campioni d’Italia.  The basilica, which sits at an altitude of some 425m (1,395ft) above sea level and often sits serenely in sunlight while mist shrouds the city below, can be reached by a steep railway line, the journey taking about 20 minutes.

Also on this day:

1830: The death of Francis I of the Two Sicilies

1931: The birth of film director Paolo Taviani

1936: The birth of actress Virna Lisi

1982: The birth of golfer Francesco Molinari

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Angelo Peruzzi - footballer

Italy international who was twice world's costliest goalkeeper

Angelo Peruzzi won every major prize in club
football during his years with Juventus

The footballer Angelo Peruzzi, who made 31 appearances for Italy’s national team and was a member of Marcello Lippi’s victorious squad at the 2006 World Cup, was born on this day in 1970 in Blera, a hilltop town in the province of Viterbo, north of Rome.

Peruzzi defied his relatively short and stocky physique to become one of the best goalkeepers of his generation, renowned not only for his physical strength but also for his positional sense, anticipation and explosive reactions.

These qualities enabled him to compensate for his lack of height and earned him a reputation for efficiency rather than spectacular stops yet he was much coveted by clubs in Italy’s Serie A. 

Twice he moved clubs for what was at the time a world record transfer fee for a goalkeeper.  In 1999 he joined Internazionale of Milan (Inter Milan) from Juventus for €14.461 million but stayed at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza for only a year before switching to Lazio in a deal worth €20.658 million.

That record stood for 11 years until Manchester United bought David de Gea from Atletico Madrid for €22 million in 2011.

His value was based on his outstanding record over eight seasons with Juventus, with whom he won every major medal on offer to a club footballer in Italy, including three Serie A titles, the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa (twice), as well as the Champions League, the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup.

Peruzzi was twice the most expensive
goalkeeper in football history

Yet before he joined Juventus in 1991 his career had been in danger of suffering a premature and ignominious end.

Even as a young player in the Roma youth system, Peruzzi struggled with his weight.  Former teammates recalled him keeping salami, sandwiches and sweets hidden in his locker to satisfy an enormous appetite.

Nonetheless, his qualities as a goalkeeper stood out. He made his Serie A debut in 1987 at the age of 17 and when Roma sent him on loan to Hellas Verona for the 1989-90 he returned with glowing reports.

However, his weight remained an issue and his decision to take an appetite suppressant in the hope of shedding some pounds quickly backfired on him spectacularly when a doping test produced a positive result for the banned substance Phentermine.

He was banned for a year and Roma were happy to let him go when Juventus offered him a contract. It proved to be the Turin club’s gain as Peruzzi soon replaced Stefano Tacconi as the club’s No 1 goalkeeper and became one of their most reliable performers, never more so than in the Champions League final of 1996 against Ajax, when his two saves in the penalty shoot-out ensured that the trophy went to Juventus.

Head coach Marcello Lippi picked Peruzzi
as his No 2 'keeper for the 2006 World Cup

Peruzzi never lost his stocky build, but where he was criticised for it as a young player, as an established player associated with success it became part of his persona, earning him a number of affectionate nicknames, including Tyson, after the heavyweight world boxing champion, il chingialone (“the boar”) and il orsone (“the big bear”).

Although his two big-money transfers were lucrative for Peruzzi personally in signing-on fees and contracts, he did not enjoy the success with Inter or Lazio that he had tasted with Juventus.  He made more than 200 appearances for Lazio over seven seasons but a Supercoppa Italiano medal in his first season and a Coppa Italia in 2004 were his only tangible honours.

Peruzzi earned his first call-up to the Italy national team under coach Arrigo Sacchi in 1995, having been a member of the Italy squad at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He was the first-choice stopper at Euro ‘96 in England, where Italy did not progress beyond the group stages, and would have gone to the World Cup in France in 1998 as number one goalkeeper had he not suffered an injury before the tournament.

By the time the next World Cup came around, Peruzzi had fallen behind Gianluigi Buffon and Francesco Toldo in the pecking order and was not considered for the 2002 finals.

It was only when Marcello Lippi, one of his former coaches at Juventus, took charge of the national team in 2004 that he came back into favour. He kept goal for two of the qualifying matches ahead of the 2006 World Cup in Germany and went to the finals as number two behind Buffon.  He never made it off the bench but nonetheless received a medal as a member of the winning squad after the azzurri defeated France on penalties in the final.

Three times awarded the Goalkeeper of the Year title in Serie A, Peruzzi retired as a player in 2008 and embarked on a career in coaching.  He immediately found a position among the technical staff at Italy’s national coaching centre at Coverciano before becoming assistant to Under-21 head coaches Ciro Ferrara and Pierluigi Casiraghi.

Ferrara gave him his first club job as assistant head coach at Sampdoria and he is now back in Rome as team co-ordinator with Lazio.

The town of Blera sits on top of a rocky ridge in northern
Lazio, some 78km (48 miles) north of Rome

Travel tip:

Angelo Peruzzi’s hometown of Blera, situated some 24km (15 miles) southwest of the city of Viterbo in northern Lazio and around 78km (48 miles) northwest of Rome, sits on a narrow tongue of rock between two deep gorges.  Its origins go back to Etruscan times, although its history suggests it was of little importance except for a stopping-off point on the Via Clodia, which linked the more important towns of Pitigliano and Sorano.  Some of the Etruscan settlement’s walls still remain intact.

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The Stadio Olimpico in Rome is home to both Lazio and
Roma and hosts many important football matches

Travel tip:

Although the Stadio Olimpico, where both Lazio and Roma play their home games, was opened in 1937, it did not become the Olympic Stadium until Italy had won the right to stage the Games in 1960.  Originally, as part of Mussolini’s ambitious Foro Mussolini (later Foro Italico) complex, it was called the Stadio dei Cipressi.  When its capacity was increased to 100,000 in the 1950s, it became the Stadio dei Centomila.  Nowadays it has seats for 70,634 spectators and is owned by the Italian National Olympic Committee but is used primarily as a venue for football matches, having been refurbished for the 1990 World Cup finals.  It has been the venue for the European Cup and Champions League finals on four occasions.

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More reading

How Arrigo Sacchi revolutionised Italian football

Italy's 2006 World Cup triumph under Fabio Cannavaro

Marco Tardelli and the image that defined Italy's 1982 World Cup victory

Also on this day:

1740: The birth of type designer Giambattista Bodoni

1918: The birth of designer Achille Castigleoni

1935: The birth of vocalist Edda Dell'Orso

1979: The birth of motorcycling world champion Valentino Rossi

(Picture credits: Blera by Robin Iversen Rönnlund; Stadio Olimpico by Andrew; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giuseppe 'Peppino' Prisco - lawyer and football administrator

Vice-president who became Inter Milan icon

Giuseppe Prisco, a legend at Inter, proudly
wears the feathered hat from his Alpini uniform

The lawyer and football administrator Giuseppe Prisco, who served as a senior figure in the running of the Internazionale football club in Milan for more than half a century, was born on this day in 1921.

Universally known as Peppino, he managed to combine a career in legal practice with a passion for Inter that he would share so publicly he became a symbol of the club whose name was chanted on the terraces.

Born in Milan into a family with its roots in Torre Annunziata, near Naples, he was said to have fallen in love with the nerazzurri at seven years old in 1929, when he witnessed his first derby against AC Milan at Inter’s old stadium, the Campo Virgilio Fossati, between Via Goldoni and Piazza Novelli to the east of the city centre.

His career as a lawyer did not begin until after he had served with the Alpini - the mountain troops of the Italian Army - on the Russian front in the Second World War. He was only 18 when he joined up but reached the rank of lieutenant in the “L’Aquila” battalion of the 9th Alpine Regiment, and as one of only three officers from 53 to return alive from the Russian front was awarded a Silver Medal for Military Valour by the Italian government.

On returning to civilian life, he graduated in law at the University of Milan and became a registered practising lawyer in 1946, opening his own office in the city, the start of a business that would bring him success and kudos for decades.

Prisco was for many years the president of the
Milanese Bar Association

He was president of the Milanese Bar Association for many years and participated in numerous high profile trials, including that of the controversial Milan banker Roberto Calvi on embezzlement charges in 1981.  Calvi was released on bail pending an appeal and a year later was found in dead in London.

Prisco joined his beloved Inter in 1949 as club secretary and thereafter served as a legal advisor to the board of directors before being elected vice-president in 1963, a position he held until his death in 2001, two days after his 80th birthday.

During his time as a director of the club, Inter won six Serie A titles, two European Cups, two Intercontinental Cups, three UEFA Cups, two Coppa Italia titles and one Italian Super Cup.

Fans took him to their hearts after he used his legal expertise to force UEFA to overturn a defeat against Borussia Moenchengladbach in the UEFA Cup in 1971 after the Inter forward Roberto Boninsegna had to be taken off after being struck by a can thrown from the crowd.  Inter won the rematch.

He also endeared himself to the nerazzurri faithful with the sharp one-liners he would frequently deliver during television interviews when he was given the opportunity to talk about the club’s great rivals.

Prisco was presented with a special Inter
shirt to mark his 50 years with the club

Famously, he once said: "If I shake hands with a Milanese, I wash my hands, if I shake hands with a Juventus (fan), I count my fingers.”

On another occasion, he declared: “I’m against every form of racism but I’d never allow my daughter to marry a Milan player.”

At the end of the 1990s, he became a regular guest on TV sports shows such as Controcampo, in which he would often have humourous spats with presenters Diego Abatantuono and Giampiero Mughini.

Married to Maria Irene, he had two children: Luigi Maria, who followed him into the legal profession, and Anna Maria.  After his death from a heart attack, he was buried at Arcisate, a town in the province of Varese, about 70km (43 miles) north of Milan.

One of the neoclassical arches that form the entrances
to Napoleon's Arena Civica in Milan

Travel tip:

Inter have shared the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in San Siro with rivals AC Milan since 1947, but before that played at a number of stadiums around the city, including the Campo di Ripa Ticinese in the Ticinese district souith of the centre, the Campo Virgilio Fossati and the Arena Civica, the grandiose neoclassical stadium commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte after he had proclaimed himself King of Italy in 1905. Inter played their home games at the Arena, a kind of mini-Colosseum in the Parco Sempione, behind the Sforza Castle, from 1930 until 1958.


Travel tip:

A view over the rooftops at Torre Annunziata, looking
towards the waters of Bay of Naples

Torre Annunziata, where Prisco had 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 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.


More reading:

Massimo Moratti, the business tycoon who presided over Inter's golden age

How Giuseppe Meazza became Italian football's first superstar

Why mystery still surrounds the death of 'God's banker' Roberto Calvi

Also on this day:

1813: The birth of forgotten composer Errico Petrella

1907: The birth of postwar movie star Amedeo Nazzari

1936: The death of playwright Luigi Pirandello


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