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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Giro di Lombardia - historic cycle race

2021 edition was 115th since inception

The finish of the 1911 Giro di Lombardia in
Milan, won by Henri Pélissier of France

The Giro di Lombardia cycle race - now known simply as Il Lombardia - was contested for the first time on this day in 1905.

The last of the cycling calendar’s five ‘Monuments’ - the races considered to be the oldest, hardest and most prestigious of the one-day events in the men's road cycling programme - the Giro di Lombardia is has also been called the Autumn Classic or la classica delle foglie morte - the classic of the dead (falling) leaves.

It is a particular favourite with cyclists who excel on hill climbs, its changing route normally featuring five or six notable ascents, of which the Madonna del Ghisallo, the site of a church that has become a sacred place in the cycling world, is a permanent fixture.

The race was the idea of journalist Tullio Morgagni, well known as the founder of the Giro d’Italia, although the Giro di Lombardia predated the former by three years.

The editor of the Milan newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, Morgagni came up with the idea to give Piero Albini, a Milanese rider, an opportunity to avenge his defeat by rival Giovanni Cuniolo in an event called the Italian King’s Cup.

Alfredo Binda, who won the
race between 1925 and 1931

For the first two years of its life, the race was simply called Milano-Milano, reflecting the fact that it started and ended in the regional capital. It was renamed the Giro di Lombardia in 1907, the same year that Morgagni launched the Milan-San Remo race that would also become one of the Monuments.

Although the course varied and climbs were gradually introduced, it was not until 1961, when the decision was taken to move the finish to Como, 50km (31 miles) north of Milan, that the race began to take on the characteristics that define it today.

The long and flat run-in to the finish in Milan was replaced with a lakeside finish preceded by a steep descent, the finish line just 6km (3.7 miles) from the pinnacle of the final climb.  The race ended in Como from 1961 to 1984, ran from Como to Milan until 1989 and subsequent courses have seen the race finish in Monza, Bergamo, Lecco and Como, with Varese, Cantù and, between 2004 and 2006, Mendrisio in Switzerland added to the starting points.

Since 2014, the race has followed a course between Bergamo and Como, with the start alternating between one and the other.

The race distance varies depending on the route. The first edition, won by Giovanni Gerbi, covered 230.5km (143 miles); of 55 starters, 12 completed the course. The latest staging, in October this year and won by Tadej Pogačar of Slovenia - pipping Italy's Fausto Masnada on the finish line - was over 239km (149 miles); 25 teams of seven riders each participated.

Vincenzo Nibali is the most recent Italian winner
of Il Lombardia, finishing first in 2015 and 2017

Of the climbs, the Madonna del Ghisallo ascent, which starts near Bellagio on the shore of Lago di Como, rises to 754m (2,474 ft). Somewhat higher is the Zambla Alta climb in the Orobic Alps, some 40km (25 miles) north of Bergamo, which rises to 1,257m (4,124 ft).

Not surprisingly, Italian riders have dominated the event over the years, winning the race 69 times, followed by Belgium and France with 12 victories each. Between 1920 and 1951 there was an unbroken run of Italian successes, including four wins each for Alfredo Binda and Fausto Coppi. The latter’s fifth triumph in 1954 makes him the Lombardia’s most successful rider of all time. 

Tom Simpson (1965) remains the only Great Britain rider to win the race, although the Republic of Ireland’s Sean Kelly was a three-times winner in the 1980s and 90s. The Italian dominance began to wane around 1960, and although there was a renaissance in the early part of this century, since 2009 only Vincenzo Nibali (2015 and 2017) has taken first place for the home nation.

The race has been billed as Il Lombardia since 2012 and the 2021 edition was the 115th. Of all the classics, it has suffered the fewest cancellations. It continued throughout World War One and was suspended for only two years in World War Two, in 1943 and 1944. The 2020 staging took place two months earlier than usual, in August, after the cycling calendar was redrawn because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Church of the Madonna del Ghisallo
has become a shrine for cyclists

Travel tip:

The Madonna del Ghisallo takes its name from an apparition of the Virgin Mary that the medieval Count Ghisallo claimed saved him when he was being attacked by bandits. The Madonna became the patroness of cyclists at the suggestion of a local priest after the hill upon which a shrine to the Madonna was built was included in the Giro di Lombardia and later the Giro d'Italia.  The Church of the Madonna del Ghisallo honours cyclists who have died in competition and an adjoining museum contains many bikes and shirts worn by riders down the years.

The imposing walls of Bergamo's Città Alta
were built by the Republic of Venice

Travel tip:

The city of Bergamo, which has alternated as the starting and finishing point for Il Lombardia in recent years, has a rich history and boasts some beautiful architecture. The walled Città Alta - the upper town - is a well preserved network of cobbled streets and mediaeval buildings, at the centre of which is Piazza Vecchia, one of Italy’s most beautiful squares. The elegant but more modern Città Bassa - the lower town - is connected to the upper part by a funicular railway. The impressive walls of the Città Alta were built in the 16th century when Bergamo belonged to the Republic of Venice, in order to protect the city from the Milanese and the French. 

Also on this day:

1892: The birth of World War One pilot Giulio Lega

1920: The signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, solving a territorial dispute at Italy’s northeastern border

1948: The death of composer Umberto Giordano

2011: The resignation of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi

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Andrea De Cesaris - racing driver

Career defined by unwanted record

Andrea De Cesaris at the wheel of the Marlboro 
McClaren he drove in his first full F1 season

The racing driver Andrea De Cesaris, who competed in 15 consecutive Formula One seasons between 1980 and 1994, died on this day in 2014 as a result of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.

De Cesaris, who was 55, lost control of his Suzuki motorcycle on Rome’s orbital motorway, the Grande Raccordo Anulare, and collided with a guard rail.

The Rome-born driver, the son of a tobacco merchant, retired from competition with the unwanted record of having never won a race in 208 Formula One starts, the most by any driver without a victory to his name in the sport’s history.

He needed no second invitation to hit the accelerator on the track but his daring often veered towards the wild and erratic and had a reputation for being accident prone, putting not only himself but other drivers at risk.  A facial tic reinforced the perception of some rivals that he was slightly mad.

His tendency to drive into trouble gave him a number of other records he would have preferred not to have earned: the most consecutive non-finishes, 18 between 1985 and 1986, although that includes mechanical failures, the most successive non-finishes in a single season, 12 in 1987, when he also set the record for the most non-finishes in a single, 16-race season, at 14. 

De Cesaris raced for 15 seasons
in Formula 1 but never won 

The pattern was set in 1981 - his first full season in F1 - driving for McLaren after forging a strong personal relationship with the Philip Morris tobacco company during their promotion of the Marlboro brand.  De Cesaris was involved in 19 crashes in practice and competition, most of them ascribed to human error.  He finished only six of the 14 races that he started.

The British-based team, which ran him alongside John Watson, a five-time GP winner, did not extend his contract beyond the 1981 season.

Yet, having entered F1 with a record of success in karting, Formula Three and Formula Two, De Cesaris was never without a team.

In all, he represented 10 teams during his career and in only one season, when he drove for Minardi in 1986, did he fail to register a point.

His best years came with Alfa Romeo in 1982 and 1983, when he achieved three of his five career podium finishes.

In 1982, De Cesaris became at 23 the youngest man ever to take pole position at the Long Beach Grand Prix, which made him only the second Alfa Romeo driver to capture a pole in 30 years.  In the same season he finished third in the Monaco GP and sixth in the Canadian GP in Montreal.

He might have claimed second place in Monaco had he not ran out of fuel on the last lap when in a position to potentially pass Didier Peroni.

De Cesaris driving for Sauber in the 1994 British
Grand Prix in his final competitive season

At Spa the following year he led the Belgian GP for half the race, and set the fastest lap, before his engine let him down. Second places at Hockenheim and Kyalami helped him accumulate a career-high 15 points to eighth in the drivers' championship, his best finish.

Alfa's withdrawal after the 1983 season left him without a drive but he was soon hired by Ligier for two seasons, and subsequently represented Minardi, Brabham, Rial, Dallara, Jordan - alongside Michael Schumacher - Tyrrell and Sauber.

Sauber’s car was unreliable and De Cesaris decided to retire at the end of the 1984 season, when he finished sixth in the French GP at Magny-Cours in France but was let down by his engine in failing to finish any of the next seven races.

Away from racing De Cesaris became a successful currency broker in Monte Carlo, a career he combined with a new sporting passion in windsurfing, in pursuit of which he travelled the world.  He bought a house in Hawaii to use as his windsurfing base.

His funeral took place at the church of San Roberto Bellarmino in the Parioli district of Rome.

The now-abandoned Pista d'Oro karting circuit
just outside Rome, where De Cesaris once raced

Travel tip:  

Some of De Cesaris’s earliest racing experience was gained at the now-abandoned Pista d’Oro, a karting stadium in Rome where Italian drivers of the calibre of Elio De Angelis, Emanuele Pirro, and Giancarlo Fisichella and even current world champion Lewis Hamilton have competed. The stadium was situated about 20km (12 miles) east of Rome at Tivoli Terme on the Via Tiburtina, which follows the route of the Roman road of the same name that linked Rome with Aternum (the modern Pescara) on the Adriatic coast. It was built by the Roman consul Marcus Valerius Maximus around 286BC, and covered a distance of approximately 200km (124 miles). 

The church of San Roberto Bellarmino
in the Parioli district of Rome

Travel tip:

The Parioli district is one of Rome's wealthiest residential neighbourhoods. Located north of the city centre, it is notable for its tree-lined streets and elegant houses, and for some of Rome's finest restaurants. The Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Villa Ada, once the Rome residence of the Italian royal family and surrounded by the second largest park in the city, can also be found within the Parioli district.

Also on this day:

1658: The birth of Mary of Modena, queen consort of England

1712: The birth of painter Francesco Guardi

1928: The birth of painter Alberto Sughi

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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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Adriano Galliani - entrepreneur, politician and football executive

Businessman was CEO of AC Milan in golden era 

Adriano Galliani was AC Milan's chief
executive for 21 mostly successful years

The entrepreneur Adriano Galliani, who was chief executive of AC Milan for 21 years, was born on this day in 1944 in Monza, the Lombardy city a little under 20km (12 miles) north of Milan.

With Galliani at the helm, Milan won the Serie A title eight times and were five-times winners of the Champions League in what was a golden era for the club.

Galliani became CEO at the club in 1986 when the ownership transferred to Silvio Berlusconi, the businessman and future prime minister with whom he had created the commercial TV company Mediaset.

He was responsible for some of the club’s most spectacular player signings, persuading such global stars as Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, George Weah, Andriy Shevchenko and Kaka to sign for the club.

All five won the Ballon D’Or, the annual award given to the player judged to the best player in all the European leagues, during their time with the club.

Since 2018, Galliani has held a seat in the Senate of the Italian parliament as a representative of Forza Italia, the political party founded by Berlusconi.

Galliani (left) and Silvio Berlusconi were business
partners before they took charge at AC Milan

Galliani hailed from a middle class family in Monza. His father was an official on the local council, his mother the owner of a small transport company. She died when he was only 15 years old, a loss he has described in interviews as devastating.

He trained as a surveyor and worked on various projects in Monza for eight years but had an entrepreneurial spirit which he claims he inherited from his mother and made his first commercial investment in a bathing establishment at Vieste on the Adriatic coast, near Foggia, some 810km (503 miles) from his hometown.

But the gamble that would change his life came in 1975, when he bought Elettronica Industriale, a company based near Monza at Lissone, which made the equipment needed to send and receive television signals.

The owner, Ottorino Barbuti, was one of many businessmen in Italy at that time who were worried about the rise of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), fearful that they if they were successful enough in parliamentary elections to form a government they would take the opportunity to seize private businesses and put them in public ownership.

Galliani, a Christian Democrat supporter, had more faith in the status quo being maintained and Elettronica Industriale prospered, becoming a supplier to Telemontecarlo, at the time the most successful private TV channel in Italy.

Galliani, with Dutch players Michael Reiziger (left)
and Edgar Davids, was responsible for recruitment 

Meanwhile, Berlusconi had launched Italy’s first private television network, TeleMilano, serving the new town of Milano Due he had built with his property company, Edilnord, and had ambitions to launch a nationwide network to challenge the national public broadcaster, Rai.

The two met for the first time in November, 1979, when Berlusconi invited him for dinner at Villa San Martino, his house at Arcore in the province of Monza and Brianza. Berlusconi spelled out his ambition to launch three national commercial channels to rival the three state channels that came under the Rai umbrella and Galliani put forward the proposition to create a national network of antennae to broadcast Berlusconi’s channels.  

Berlusconi bought 50 per cent of Elettronica Industriale and together he and Galliani changed the face of Italian television, adding Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4 to the choice of channels available to Italian viewers.

When Berlusconi bought AC Milan in 1986 it was natural he would turn to Galliani, a football enthusiast, to help him fulfil his dream of winning major titles with the rossoneri.  Working together, they would enjoy unparalleled success.

Galliani is now CEO at his
home town club, AC Monza

Coached by Arrigo Sacchi, Fabio Capello, Carlo Ancelotti and Massimiliano Allegri, AC Milan won eight Serie A titles and were European champions five times, although their run of success ended in 2011 with the power in Italian football shifting to Juventus.

Galliani’s judgment in the transfer market came under scrutiny, with his decision to allow midfielder Andrea Pirlo to leave Milan on a free transfer in 2011 seen as a symbolic mistake, the World Cup winner signing for Juventus and going on to have some of the best years of his career.

Berlusconi sold AC Milan in 2017, at which point Galliani ceased to be CEO, although he remained involved in the Berlusconi business empire as a director of Berlusconi’s Fininvest company and president of Mediaset Premium.

He returned to football in 2018 as CEO of his hometown club, Monza, which had been bought by Berlusconi and was soon promoted to Serie B of the championship.

In February, 2021, Galliani contracted Covid-19 and spent 10 days in intensive care in the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. On discharge, he admitted he feared he would die from the disease and that, after being confined to a windowless ICU, being back on a normal ward felt like being in the best room in a five-star hotel.

Married three times, Galliani has a grandson, Adrian, who was born in New York in 2001 and currently plays as a midfielder for the Greek club Olympiacos, having had a brief spell in England with Nottingham Forest.

The beautiful town of Vieste sits at the tip of
the Gargano peninsula in Puglia

Travel tip:

Vieste, where Galliani invested in a bathing facility in the early part of his business career, is a beautiful fishing port and tourist resort at the tip of the Gargano peninsula in Puglia, a little over 90km (55 miles) east of the city of Foggia. Part of the Gargano National Park, it sits on a stretch of coastline unusual for its combination of long, sandy beaches and rocky coves. At the end of one stretch of beach is the Pizzomunno, a 25m (82ft) limestone monolith separated by erosion from the adjacent cliffs. The town, which was regularly attacked by pirates, Saracens and other enemies of the Kingdom of Naples in medieval times, also has an attractive historic centre in which the milky white stone of the buildings contrasts with the emerald green of the sea.

Monza's Duomo has an attractive
facade in white and green marble 

Travel tip:

Monza, where Galliani was born, is about 15km (9 miles) to the north east of Milan. It is famous for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which hosts the Formula One Italian Grand Prix. The city is also home to the Iron Crown of Lombardy, a circlet of gold with a central iron band, which according to legend, was beaten out of a nail from Christ’s true cross and was found by Saint Helena in the Holy Land. The crown is believed to have been given to the city of Monza in the sixth century and is kept in a chapel in the Cathedral of Saint John. When Napoleon Bonaparte was declared King of Italy in 1805, he was crowned in the Duomo in Milan and the Iron Crown had to be fetched from Monza before the ceremony. During his coronation, Napoleon is reported to have picked up the precious relic, announced that God had given it to him, and placed it on his own head.

Also on this day:

1626: Naples earthquake and tsunami kills 70,000 people

1909: The birth of chemist Vittorio Erspamer

2006: The death of film director Michelangelo Antonio

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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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Alberto Gilardino - World Cup winner

Prolific goalscorer now on coaching ladder

Alberto Gilardino helped Italy win
the World Cup in 2006

The footballer Alberto Gilardino, who was an important member of Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning squad and is one of the all-time top 10 goalscorers in Serie A, was born on this day in 1982 in the province of Biella in Piedmont.

A striker, Gilardino, who enjoyed his peak years as a player with Parma, AC Milan and Fiorentina, totalled 188 goals in Serie A matches, putting him ninth on the all-time list.  He had scored 100 Serie A goals by the age of 26, one of the youngest to achieve that milestone.

As an Italy international, he played under coaches Marcello Lippi, Roberto Donadoni and Cesare Prandelli, scoring 19 goals in 57 appearances, having made his mark previously in the country’s Under-21 team, for whom he was all-time top scorer with 19 goals in 30 games and was captain of the side that won the 2004 European Under-21 championships.

Under Lippi, he was a key figure at the 2006 World Cup, starting all three group games and the first knock-out round alongside Luca Toni, scoring Italy’s goal against the United States in the group stages. He lost his place to Roma’s Francesco Totti in the later knock-out rounds but came on as a substitute in the historic semi-final win over hosts Germany, hitting a post and providing the assist for Alessandro del Piero’s goal in extra time.

Gilardino was part of the AC Milan side
coached by Carlo Ancelotti (above)

In club football, although he scored more goals during his spells with Parma and Fiorentina, it was his three seasons with AC Milan that brought him the most tangible success.

Signed for €25 million in July 2005 after scoring 51 goals in 97 Serie A games for Parma, he was part of the team coached by Carlo Ancelotti that won the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup in 2007.

He retired as a player in 2018 and is currently coaching in Serie D with Siena, following the traditional pathway for coaches in Italy, who traditionally hone their skills in the lower divisions before taking on the top jobs.

Born in the town of Cossato, about 10km (six miles) from Biella and 80km (50 miles) northeast of Turin, Gilardino played for local youth teams before he was spotted by Piacenza, who signed him and gave him his Serie A debut at the age of just 17 in January 2000.

Although Piacenza were relegated, Gilardino made sufficient impact to earn a move to another Serie A club, Hellas Verona. 

Gilardino scored 48 Serie A goals
in his time with Fiorentina

He suffered a setback in April 2001 in the shape of a serious road accident, swerving his car off the road into a canal while driving his sisters, Silvia and Cosetta, to their home in Treviso. Despite sustaining an injury to his back, he managed to open the doors of the vehicle before it sank and was able to drag his sisters to safety.

But he returned to action the following season and it was not long before his move to Parma established him as a top-class striker, scoring 51 goals in not much more than two seasons and winning his first cap for the senior national team, for whom he made his debut in September 2004.

The big-money move to Milan followed, although despite winning major medals he never quite won the full trust of manager Carlo Ancelotti, who left him out of his starting line-up for the 2007 Champions League final in spite of his decisive goal in the semi-final against Manchester United.

Gilardino, who became famous for celebrating his goals by dropping to his knees and simulating the motion of playing a violin, left Milan in May 2008 for Fiorentina, where he scored 48 goals in 118 games. From Florence, his career took him to Genoa, Bologna, Guangzhou Evergrande in China, Palermo, Empoli, Pescara and Spezia before he turned to coaching at the age of 37. 

Siena is his third club as a coach. He has presided over only eight defeats in 20 matches with the Tuscan team, who recently confirmed him as their head coach for the 2021-22 season.

In 2009, he married his girlfriend, Alice Bregoli, at La Cervara Abbey in Santa Margherita Ligure, in the province of Genoa. They have three children. 

UPDATE: After leaving Siena in October 2021, he joined Genoa as under-19 coach in July 2022 before being appointed head coach of the senior team in December 2022 and winning promotion to Serie A.

The Castello di Castellengo is
in the province of Biella 

Travel tip:

Gilardino hails from the town of Cossato, a town in Piedmont in the province of Biella, an area notable for its medieval castles, such as the Castello di Castellengo, at the centre of a beautiful wine-producing estate. Biella itself is a well-established town of almost 45,000 inhabitants in the foothills of the Alps, about 85km (53 miles) northeast of Turin and slightly more than 100m (62 miles) west of Milan. Its attractions include a Roman baptistery from the early 1000s and the church and convent of San Sebastian. Wool and textiles have been associated with the town since the 13th century and brands such as Cerruti 1881, Ermenegildo Zegna, Vitale Barberis Canonico and Fila still have a presence.

Siena's Piazza del Campo is one of the
most beautiful medieval squares in Europe

Travel tip:

Siena is perhaps best known as the venue for the historic horse race, the Palio di Siena. The race takes place in the Piazza del Campo, a shell-shaped open area which is regarded as one of Europe’s finest medieval squares. It was established in the 13th century as an open marketplace on a sloping site between the three communities that eventually merged to form the city of Siena.  The city's cathedral, with a pulpit designed by Nicola Pisani, is considered a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque-Gothic architecture.

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of military leader Giovanni Sforza

1966: The birth of footballer Gianfranco Zola

1974: The birth of motorcycle champion Roberto Locatelli

1982: Paolo Rossi scores a World Cup hat-trick for Italy against Brazil

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Ondina Valla - ground-breaking athlete

Italy’s first female Olympic champion

Ondina Valla broke new
ground for women in sport

Trebisonda ‘Ondina’ Valla, the first Italian woman to win an Olympic gold medal, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.

Known as Ondina reputedly after a journalist misspelled her unusual name, Valla won the 80m at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where she also set a world record time in the semi-final.

The victory established Valla as an icon for Italy’s Fascist regime and as a heroine for Italian girls with sporting ambitions, her success breaking new ground for women in the face of considerable opposition to female participation in sport.

The Catholic Church’s attitude was that sport was not compatible with the standards of morality, modesty and domesticity it expected of women, while the view of Italy’s medical profession was that women should take only basic physical exercise if they wanted to maintain the level of health required for motherhood.

Benito Mussolini initially saw women as occupying a traditional role in the society he envisaged for the fascist ideal, supporting her husband and caring for his children within the family unit.

But he seized upon Valla’s success as a political opportunity, keen to portray her as an example of Italian Fascism’s dynamism and the potential for Italians to make their mark internationally.

Ondina was named Trebisonda by her father, Gaetano, a blacksmith, after the Turkish city of Trabzon, which he considered the most beautiful city in the world.

Ondina Valla (left) waits with four other athletes 
for the final of the 80m hurdles in Berlin

Sporting prowess was evidently in her genes. She had four brothers, all of whom had athletic ability and by the age of 11 she stood out among her peers for her talent and determination to succeed. She and her classmate Claudia Testoni dominated the student championships in Bologna.

Valla excelled in sprint and hurdle races as well as the jumping events and was a national champion at the age of 14.

It was at this point, supposedly, that a journalist misspelled her name as Trebitonda, which in turn was further corrupted to Trebitondina, then Ondina, which translates in English as ‘little wave’. The name stuck to the extent that even her parents began to use it.

She joined the prestigious Virtus Atletica Bologna club and was selected for the Italian national team to go to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, only for her participation to be blocked under pressure from the Vatican, who deemed it inappropriate for a 16-year-old to travel as the only female member of the team.

By the time the next Games came around, the Fascist government decided she represented their ideal of a healthy, strong national youth, even though she was a girl, and she was permitted to travel to Berlin in 1936, where Mussolini reasoned that a strong performance at ‘Hitler’s Games’ would be good for Italy’s standing. 

Valla excelled in hurdles events as well as
sprints and the high jump

She lived up to his expectations. She won the semi-final of the 80m hurdles in 11.6 seconds, beating the world record, which made her favourite for the final the following day. In a tight finish, Valla crossed the line first, with her former schoolmate and rival Testoni finishing fourth, denied a medal in a photo finish for the silver and bronze. 

At the age of 20 years and 78 days, she was the youngest Italian athlete of either sex to win an Olympic gold, a record that remained hers until 2004, when Elena Gigli was part of an Italian gold-medal winning water polo team at the Athens Games at the age of 19 years and 48 days.

Her Olympic triumph made Valla a popular figure in Fascist Italy and a symbol for Italian girls, helping to soften hostility towards women's participation in sport. The government were not slow to see the propaganda value of female athletic success, as they already did for the successes of male athletes.

In all, Valla won 15 national championships in different events, set a national high jump record that stood for 15 years and took three titles at the University Sports World Games in Tokyo. Back problems largely forced her out of further competition at the highest level, but led her into a new life.

Guglielmo De Lucchi, the back
specialist who Valla married

The orthopaedic specialist she consulted in a clinic of the Rizzoli Institute in Bologna in 1943 was a former high jumper, Guglielmo De Lucchi. He was seven years’ her senior but they were immediately attracted to one another and, a year later, were married, spending their honeymoon on a cycling holiday between Bologna and his hometown, Padua.

After they were married, she quit athletics and gave birth to a son, Luigi, in 1945, their only child. Guglielmo’s career took to Pescara on the Adriatic coast and then Chieti in Abruzzo before they settled in the capital of that region, L’Aquila, in 1955.

Sadly, Guglielmo died in 1964 at the age of just 56. Ondina lived for a further 42 years, passing away at the age of 90, spending her final years living with Luigi and his wife Gabriella, enjoying the company of her grandchildren, Claudio and Roberto.

She suffered a blow in 1978 when burglars stole her Olympic gold medal. It was never returned, but Italian athletics chief Primo Nebiolo, the Italian who would go on to be president of the IAAF, the world federation of athletics, arranged for an exact replica to be produced.

The attractive Piazza del Duomo is one of
the main squares in L'Aquila

Travel tip:

The capital of the Abruzzo region, L’Aquila was built in the 13th century on a hill within the valley of the Aterno river. Its construction was started by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and completed by his son, Conrad IV of Germany. It was destroyed by Conrad’s brother, Manfred in 1259, but rebuilt by Charles I of Anjou, who surrounded it with walls.  The city suffered a devastating earthquake in 2009, which cost the lives of more than 300 people. Many of the buildings badly damaged by the earhquake have been restored, including the 12th century Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio, with its distinctive exterior of alternating pink and white stone blocks, and the 15th century Basilica of San Bernardino, which reopened in 2015 after six years of restoration work that cost around €40 million.

Piazza Maggiore, pictured here at night, is the
beating heart of the city of Bologna

Travel tip:

The history of Bologna, Ondina Valla’s home city, can be traced back to 1,000BC or possibly earlier, with a settlement that was developed into an urban area by the Etruscans, the Celts and the Romans.  The University of Bologna, the oldest in the world, was founded in 1088.  Bologna's city centre, which has undergone substantial restoration since the 1970s, is one of the largest and best preserved historical centres in Italy, characterised by 38km (24 miles) of walkways protected by porticoes.  At the heart of the city is the beautiful Piazza Maggiore, dominated by the Gothic Basilica of San Petronio, which at 132m long, 66m wide and with a facade that touches 51m at its tallest, is the 10th largest church in the world and the largest built in brick.

Also on this day:

1470: The birth of poet and scholar Pietro Bembo

1537: The birth of anatomist and physiologist Hieronymous Fabricius

1943: The birth of singer Al Bano

1967: The birth of film director Gabriele Muccino

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Giovanna Trillini - fencing champion

Four-times Olympic champion in foil

Giovanna Trillini won eight
Olympic medals, including four golds

The Olympic fencing champion Giovanna Trillini, one of Italy’s most successful female athletes, was born on this day in 1970 in Jesi, a medieval town in the Marche region.

Trillini won the individual gold medal in the foil event at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and was part of Italy’s gold-medal winning group in the team foil at Barcelona in 1992 as well as at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000.

She competed at five consecutive summer Olympics between 1996 and 2008 and her total medal haul of eight, including one silver and two bronze medals in the individual foil, makes her Italy’s fifth most successful Olympian and the third most successful female competitor.

After winning individual gold in Barcelona, she was honoured by being asked to be the flag bearer for the azzurri team at the opening ceremony for the Games in Atlanta four years later.

Trillini’s career also encompassed 19 medals in world championship events, including nine golds, and six in the European championships.

Born into a sporting family, Trillini was encouraged to take up fencing by her two brothers, Ezio and Roberto, who were both regular competitors in the sport, in which Italy has a long tradition.

She studied at the University of Urbino, graduating in Sports Science, and developed her fencing skills under the master fencer Ezio Triccoli, another native of Jesi, who set up the Club Scherma Jesi in 1947, in order to teach the art he had learned from a British army officer while he was a prisoner of war during World War II.

Trillini on the medal podium after
her triumph in Barcelona in 1992

Triccoli, who died in 1996 at the age of 81, was responsible for training numerous champions, including Trillini’s close rival and team-mate, Valentina Vezzali, who was also born in Jesi.

Vezzali won gold in the individual foil at three consecutive games, in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Between them, Trillini and Vezzali dominated the foil scene throughout the 90s and 2000s. Only Vezzali, with six golds, has been more successful than Trillini in terms of Olympic medals.

Trillini won the foil competition at the fencing World Cup four times, in 1991, 1994. 1995 and 1998, but undoubtedly would have been champion on many more occasions but for the presence of Vezzali, four years’ her junior, to whom she was runner-up no fewer than seven times.

At the age of 38, Trillini was a beaten semi-finalist in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, losing 15-10 to Nyam Hyun-Hee of Korea, who went on to lose to Veazzali in the final. She lost to another Italian, Margherita Granbassi, in the third-place final, before announcing her immediate retirement from the sport, claiming that her performance against her opponent in the semi-final had been deliberately undermarked to prevent an all-Italian final.

She made a comeback in 2010 but retired again two years later after failing to reach pre-2008 levels in her performance.

Fencing, which dates back to the Renaissance era in Italy, is a sport in which Italians have enjoyed success throughout the history of the Olympics. 

Seven of Italy’s top 10 Olympians in terms of medals won have been fencers, while no nation has won more gold medals in fencing than Italy, with 49 to date.

It remains Italy’s most successful Olympic sport in all disciplines. The next best in terms of gold medals won is cycling with 33, followed by athletics with 19.

The city of Jesi has well preserved walls
built along the lines of its Roman defences

Travel tip:

Jesi, alternatively spelled Iesi, which was the site of a settlement in the fourth century BC, has developed as an industrial centre but maintains its cultural heritage within perfectly preserved medieval walls, built along the lines of its old Roman defences between the 13th and 14th centuries.  Notable buildings include the Cathedral of San Settimio in Piazza Federico II, the nearby 12th century church of San Floriano, which once contained paintings by Lorenzo Lotto that are now housed in the Pinacoteca Civica.  The Teatro Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, named in honour of the 18th century musician and composer who was born in Jesi, stands in the elegant Piazza della Repubblica.

The Renaissance Palazzo Ducale in Pesaro, one
of many attractions away from the beach

Travel tip:

Jesi is in the northern part of the Marche region, only 25km (16 miles) from the Adriatic coast and the stretch between Ancona and Pesaro that includes Senigallia and Fano. Like many Italian coastal resorts, the towns and cities in the area popular for their wide expanses of sandy beach also have much history to commend them. Fano, for example, revels in its Roman past, having been established in 49BC by Julius Caesar in 49 BC, when it was named Fanum Fortunae. Caesar Augustus protected the city with monumental walls and the Arco d'Augustus, the primary gateway into the city, still remains, along with some sections of the walls.  Pesaro, which is the region’s second largest city with 94,000 residents, is another magnet for sun-seekers but also boasts a city centre criss-crossed with narrow, medieval streets, several pretty squares and a number of beautiful Renaissance palaces.

Also on this day:

1500: The birth of Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua

1510: The death of Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli

1963: The birth of motorcycle world champion Luca Cadalora 

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