Italy's World Cup hero was celebrated striker
Paolo Rossi, Italy's goal-scoring hero from their victorious 1982 World Cup campaign and scorer of a hat trick against Brazil in one of the most famous matches in the competition's history, has died at the age of 64.
The celebrated striker's death comes with the soccer world still mourning Argentina icon Diego Maradona, who died last month.
Italian TV channel RAI Sport, where Rossi had been working as a pundit, said on Thursday “Pablito” had died of an “incurable disease.”
Rossi's wife, Federica Cappelletti, posted a photo of herself and her husband on Instagram along with the words “per sempre”: “forever.”
“There will never be anyone like you, unique, special,” Cappelletti later wrote in Italian on Facebook.
Italian Football Federation president Gabriele Gravina said Rossi was “indelibly linked to the blue shirt and his style of play inspired many strikers of future generations.”
Rossi, almost frail-looking for a striker at the time but quick, agile and intelligent, won two Serie A titles, a European Cup and a Coppa Italia with Juventus, but will be most fondly remembered for lighting up the 1982 World Cup in Spain with six goals.
His selection in the Italy squad came after a two-year ban for a match-fixing scandal and was initially criticized by pundits, who wrote him off as out of shape. But they were left eating their words
when he struck one of the World Cup's great hat tricks against Brazil, which was the runaway tournament favourite and had enchanted the world with its flowing style of soccer.
Italy's 3-2 victory in that classic encounter in the second group
phase booked them a place in the semis against Poland, where Rossi again made the difference.
He sunk the Poles with a brace in a 2-0 win that fired his side into the World Cup decider against West Germany.