THE ITALIAN GEORGE BEST
Gigi Meroni had the Beatle haircut and was the rebel in Italy’s 1966 squad... but his life ended in freakish fashion
THOSE who saw him play and those who simply saw the grainy footage do not hesitate to describe Gigi Meroni as a football genius. With his socks down and a Beatle haircut he was Italy’s George Best. A dashing winger, Meroni was also an antidote to the turgid defensive tactics of catenaccio, yet this was only part of his appeal.
He was also a cultural icon, a splash of colour from the Swinging Sixties in an otherwise austere post-war society and fiercely Catholic nation.
He refused to conform, sparking one scandal by living with his married girlfriend and another by refusing to cut his hair before the World Cup in 1966.
As many tutted their disapproval, he casually poked fun at his critics by taking a hen for a stroll on a lead near Lake Como before trying to get the bird into a bathing suit.
Long before Mario Balotelli or Antonio Cassano, Meroni was the original rebel of Italian football.
He would have been 75 last month but was dead at 24, killed by a car in October 1967 as he crossed a Turin street with Torino team-mate Fabrizio Poletti.
They had beaten Sampdoria 4-2 that day and had stopped for a drink on the way back to Meroni’s loft apartment.
They were crossing the broad Corso Re Umberto when they paused in the centre, aware of a car moving quickly towards them on the second carriageway.
They took a step back — into the path of a 124 Fiat Coupe. Meroni was sent flying and was hit again by a car going the other way. He died in hospital with both legs and his pelvis broken and injuries to his chest and head.
The Fiat was driven by Attilio Romero, a teenage Torino fan who adored Meroni and lived only a few doors away. Romero’s home was adorned with Torino flags and posters of his hero.
There was even said to be a picture of Meroni taped to the rear window of the car.
More than 50 years have passed but the memory still refuses to fade.
‘I remember everything,’ says Romero. ‘I was going to overtake a car on my right. In the middle of the roadway were two pedestrians. When I am close, one steps back, takes the impact and is thrown on to the other side where he is hit by another car.
‘I stop, then realise the pedestrian lying on the asphalt is my idol.
‘Then the sirens, the ambulances, the hospital, the surgery and the death of Meroni in the night. His life was over and mine was a bit, too.’
Only hours before, Romero had been cheering for Torino and fighting with another fan who had dared to criticise Meroni.
Weeks earlier, he had been on a protest march to the home of Torino president Orfeo Pianelli and the mansion of Gianni Agnelli, the Juventus president, who had agreed a deal to move the star across the city for 750 million lire.
Some claim Fiat workers, many of whom supported Torino although the company owned Juventus, were ready to strike in protest at the transfer. The move was called off.
Meroni’s death brought Turin to a halt. More than 20,000 turned out for the funeral.
‘I do not know how much my life was changed,’ Romero told Sportsmail.
‘For 50 years I have lived with a memory that is a mix of pain, disbelief, inexplicability, and then, gradually, sadness, regrets and unanswered questions.
‘Meroni had an aesthetic originality, in clothing, in hair. He was also a good artist and his lifestyle was in line with this nonconformism. He was a free and eccentric spirit in a traditionalist city.
‘In football, Meroni was a champion, an Italian George Best, socks lowered, excellent dribbling, fast, technically very gifted. As quick as the wind. A pleasure for the eyes.
‘If he played today, he would be a football genius just like then. Class is timeless.’
Meroni was born in Como, where he started his career before moving to Genoa. There, he was once banned for five games for skipping a drug test where team-mates tested positive.
Aged 21, he was sold to Torino, then coached by Nereo Rocco, who had led AC Milan to the European Cup and had vowed to restore the glories of the Grande Torino team lost in the 1949 Superga air crash.
His signing was proof of this ambition but the closest they came to the title was to finish third in 1965. Two years later, Rocco was back at Milan.
That Meroni won only six Italy caps is often attributed to a fractious relationship with disciplinarian manager Edmondo Fabbri, who frowned upon his unconventional behaviour and seemed especially troubled by his hairstyle.
‘I might play well, even with long hair,’ shrugged Meroni, who was recalled to the squad for the 1966 World Cup, but played only one match, against the Soviet Union.
HE AVOIDED the humiliating defeat by North Korea at Middlesbrough but was still scapegoated by some who decided he was a bad influence and blamed his refusal to get on with Fabbri as a reason Italy did not have one of their best players in the team. At Torino, they called him La Farfalla
Granata (The Crimson Butterfly), a reference to Torino’s dark red shirts. It became the title of a famous book about Meroni by Nando dalla Chiesa, which was turned into a film five years ago.
Meroni’s legend has thrived and fans still sing his name at Torino, a club unable to live up to, or let go of, the ghosts of a glorious past.
Torino played the first fixture after Meroni’s death seven days later. It was the derby at the home of Juventus. Flowers were dropped into the stadium from an aeroplane and laid along the right wing of the pitch. Torino won the game 4-0.
Three of those goals were scored by Nestor Combin, Meroni’s close friend. The fourth came from Alberto Carelli, the player who took Meroni’s old No 7 shirt.
Since 2007, there has been a monument to Meroni at the spot where he was killed in Corso Re Umberto. As for Romero, by a strange twist, he became president of Torino at the turn of the century until the club went bankrupt in 2005. Now, at 69, he says: ‘The anguish of 50 years ago has been gradually blurred by sadness.
‘I don’t believe a lot in destiny, rather in chance, but there are two clues to suggest the first hypothesis.
‘The commander of the plane that crashed into Superga with the Grande Torino team aboard was called Luigi Meroni.
‘Also, my father told me that a few days before the accident he dreamt that I was driving my car when I hit an animal, a bull, which is the symbol of Torino Calcio.
‘Here we enter the field of the inexplicable and then I stop.’