Obituaries
(1956-2020)
In early December, Italian football mourned one of its most iconic figures when 1982 World Cup hero Paolo Rossi died at the age of 64, following a losing battle with lung cancer.
At an emotional funeral in Vicenza, many of his World Cup team-mates admitted that they had not even known he was terminally ill. Despite Rossi’s legendary status, he was not one to make a fuss.
Rossi will be forever remembered for his role in that largely unexpected triumph in Spain. In one of the great World Cup stories, Italy coach Enzo Bearzot included the 26-year-old striker, despite the fact that he had only played three games in the previous two years, because of a bitterly contested (by him) two-year match-fixing ban.
Bearzot’s gamble, however, paid off. After three poor opening round draws, Italy exploded into life in the second round when Rossi scored a hat-trick in an epic 3-2 defeat of tournament favourites Brazil.
Two more goals against Poland in the semi-final, and the first of Italy’s three goals in the final against West Germany saw Rossi end up as the tournament’s Golden Boot winner.
In the words of Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, Rossi was the player “who realised a dream for an entire generation with his goals in the summer of 1982”.