The passing of Gigi Riva: the last true football warrior is gone. The Bedouins of the desert whistle for silence in Riyadh
The last true warrior of Italian football has passed away, Luigi Riva, called Gigi, nom de guerre “Thunderclap” which was given to him by Gianni Brera to represent the devastating power of a deadly left foot that shot the ball at over 130 km/h, overwhelming everything and everyone and breaking through the net. shore in the collective imagination he is a myth who accomplished the feat of giving the scudetto to Cagliari in 1970, the only one that the island team has won.
He loved to remember himself with the cleanest shirt of his team, the white one, with the four Moors and without sponsors, a legacy of a football that was still true, made of ideals and not just money like now. Gigi was born in Leggiuno, province of Varese, sul Lake Maggiore. He had taken from those lands the closed character, dedicated to doing, to the concrete, to results, characteristics favored by a poor family, by orphanages and boarding schools that sculpted a sharp, angular and concrete character.
The beginning, like many others, on the dusty fields of the oratory, with the priest in his cassock taking to the pitch and taking part in the match. The debut in the 1962 – 63 season in Legnano, the only professional club that has a lilac colored shirt, a very particular colour. Then his entire career in Cagliari from 1962 to 1977. At the same time the decade in the national team from 1963 to 1977 with the victory in the 1968 European Championship in Rome and the second place in 1970 in Mexico after scoring a historic goal against Germany in the match won by 'Italy 4 to 3.
Gigi Riva, from Lombardy, became Sardinian on a closed character already prepared for the transaction. Youthful excesses, escapes in the powerful car to Oristano with friends. The meeting with the Scudetto coach who also acted as his father, Manlio Scopigno, “the philosopher”, who had a liberal conception of football, few sacrifices and having fun playing.
Gigi was a “physical” player, grim, with a lean body, tall enough to often score goals with his head. A few dribbles, a couple of feints that disoriented the opponent and then the explosive power of his left foot exploded, which he often inserted acute and geometrized trajectories who scored the ball on the opposite side of the goalkeeper and when the shot was central they broke through the obstacles with explosive power.
When needed Riva was also unbeatable in acrobatic game. His famous overhead kick was a goal he scored against Vicenza and which has entered the annals among the most beautiful goals in the history of football. A player tied to his new land, he never wanted to leave his team that had given him everything as he had given everything to her. He rejected a billion-dollar offer to move to Turin, to Juventus at the Agnelli court to serve his historic colors, the red and blue of a shirt that he always honored with sacrifice and the sweat of the fight.
Serious injuries limited his career but did not prevent him from becoming the Italian national team's top scorer with 35 goals in 42 games. Record still unbeaten. In Cagliari he holds the same record with 164 goals. His image is associated with a prehistoric but noble era of football and television. We can see his goals again in magnificent black and white, often shot in slow motion, to show all the explosive power of his left foot. Last night in Riyadh a minute's silence was observed at the start of the second half of the Super Cup final between Inter and Napoli. The Bedouins of the desert booed because they don't even know Riva and his pure football not polluted by their money. A final affront that the last warrior of Italian football did not deserve. Let's play the Italian finals in Italy.
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