Football
Gianluca Vialli was a star player for Chelsea who won some of Europe’s biggest prizes on the field and became a role model off it.
Gianluca Vialli died of cancer at the age of 58. As a player and manager for Chelsea, he helped change the game in England and was a very well-known figure. He cheered on his old friend Roberto Mancini as Italy won Euro 2020.
Gianluca Vialli stood alone in Wembley Stadium an hour before Italy’s final with England. Calm before the storm. Reflection.
This had been a long voyage.
This venue was a favorite of Vialli’s. Vialli lost the 1992 European Cup final in extra time with Sampdoria before winning the FA Cup, twice, the League Cup, and the Charity Shield with Chelsea.
He returned to football after 20 years.
Vialli was at Wembley, just a few miles from his London home, to see an old friend and his countrymen make history.
Roberto Mancini, Vialli’s hero since he was 14 and his Sampdoria strike partner in the 1988 European Cup final loss to Barcelona, invited him to take a leadership role with Italy. To function as a mentor to players and staff, and to encourage this generation.
Accepted. It was a chance to support his “Goal Twin,” as he and Mancini were known at Sampdoria, and to start a new chapter in his life.
Vialli battled pancreatic cancer in 2018. A year before the 2021 Wembley final, he was given the all-clear; his comeback to football and work with Italy distracted him from the cancer.
Those calm minutes by the center place were thought-provoking.
Four hours later, he was out celebrating again.
After a hard-fought match, Italy won on penalties. Vialli couldn’t bear to watch. Nervous, he stood alone, facing away from the goal.
When he won, he hugged Mancini with relief, excitement, and elation.
His Wembley moment. Another outstanding accomplishment.
It was his final football victory.
Five months after winning at Wembley, Vialli told everyone that his cancer had come back. He had to leave the national team in December to focus on his fight, which sadly ended on January 6, 2023, when he was 58 years old.
The fact that Vialli died in west London 22 years after he was fired as Chelsea manager shows how much he cared about the club, its fans, and the area. For Chelsea fans, it’s the same way around. At Stamford Bridge, everyone loves him and sings his name to the tune of “Amore.”
He or she won the Champions League. A Serie A winner. A striker who has won four Italian Cups and several European trophies. The player who costs the most in the world… By the time he joined Chelsea in the summer of 1996, Vialli had done it all.
He was a teen star at Cremonese and helped them move up the leagues. Then, he and Mancini scored the goals that helped Sampdoria win five major trophies, which was the best time in the club’s history.
In 1992, he moved to Juventus for a record-breaking £12.5 million and won more trophies, including the long-awaited Champions League title that made up for Ronald Koeman’s goal at Wembley.
He had been to three major tournaments with the Azzurri and was on the team of the tournament at Euro 88.
Still, Vialli’s time with Chelsea will be the thing that English football fans remember most about him after he died.
This is partly because of a culture that is focused on itself, but it is also a sign of how important Vialli was in changing the way English football worked in the mid- to late-1990s.
During that time, there was a growing number of foreign players. During the 1996–97 season, 122 players from outside the UK and Republic of Ireland played in the league. This was more than a third more than the year before.
When Vialli joined the division, there were seven Italians, but there had only been one the season before.
Vialli caught people’s attention with his exciting style of play, his charismatic personality, and his unique look, with his shaved head and Chelsea sweatband.
His fights with Ruud Gullit, the player-manager of Chelsea, also made the news. The Dutchman made fun of Vialli’s smoking habit, and the two had a fight that led to Vialli only getting a few minutes of playing time at the end of the 1997 FA Cup final win over Middlesbrough. This was despite the fact that Vialli had scored twice to break a tie with Liverpool earlier in the tournament.
Vialli had been in a fight with a coach before. After rumors of a practical joke, Arrigo Sacchi never picked him again for an international team after 1992.
But his big personality was part of what made him so interesting, and Vialli would get the last laugh at Chelsea when he took over from Gullit as player-manager in February 1998. He used the progress Gullit had made in the cup competitions to win the League Cup and the UEFA Cup Winners Cup in just a few months.
It’s easy to see why Chelsea fans fell for him. He was a great striker, a manager who won trophies, and a stylish Italian. With Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Di Matteo on his team, “il Tricolore” was making history with his teammates.
Vialli was a great player when he was young. He played well for Italy’s U21 team and was the top scorer in Serie A when he was only 20 years old. He also showed how quickly he could learn how to coach.
When he won his first two trophies, he was only 33 years old. This made him the youngest manager in UEFA history to win a title. In 1998 and 1999, his reputation kept getting better.
The season started off well when Chelsea beat Real Madrid in the Super Cup. At the end of the season, Chelsea finished third in the league, which was their best finish since 1970.
As the first Italian manager in the Premier League, it was a feather in Vialli’s cap, but he wanted more. Before the season, he talked up the team’s chances of winning the title, and he led them to the top spot at Christmas. In the end, they were four points behind the winner, Manchester United.
His high hopes for Stamford Bridge cost him in the end, but Chelsea’s first-ever qualification for the Champions League was a reward for his good work during his first full season in charge.
Vialli retired in May 1999, at the age of 35, because he wanted to focus on coaching. He scored 10 goals in 20 games, including one against Derby at Stamford Bridge on the last day of the season, which shows how good he was for a long time. That was his 40th goal for Chelsea in 83 games, which is a great rate, especially since 35% of those goals came when he was also in charge of the team.
With the turn of the century, his reputation in west London grew even more after he beat Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals and then beat Aston Villa in the FA Cup final.
The next August, Vialli and Chelsea also won the Charity Shield. It was the last club game to be played at the old Wembley, which has been a big part of Vialli’s career. It was also the fifth and final trophy of his short but successful time as a manager. Since he didn’t win a second title in 1999/2000, he was fired harshly after a slow start to the next season.
Vialli couldn’t do it again while he was in charge of Watford for a season, so he moved into the business and media worlds until Mancini called him in 2019.
By that time, being sick had given him a clear view of life. In an interview with the Italian TV station RAI 1, he said that cancer was his “unwanted travel companion.” “It got on the train with me, and I have to keep my head down and never give up, hoping that one day this unwanted guest will get tired and leave peacefully for many years because there are still so many things I want to do in this life.”
Maybe when he stood in the middle of that Wembley pitch, after all the ups and downs he’d been through in that part of London, he appreciated the chance he’d been given, with a break from his illness, to help his best friend Mancini lead Italy to its first European title since 1968.
But Vialli had hoped that how he dealt with cancer would have an even bigger effect.
“I know that people can look at me, see that I’m doing well, and hope that they can do the same,” he said. “I was a football player and a strong man, but I was also weak and vulnerable, so I think someone may have seen themselves in this.”
“I’m here with all my flaws and worries, but I also want to do something important.”
Vialli was a legend as a player and as a player-manager. He was a top performer who helped change the way English football was played. But his big personality and his brave fight against cancer made him an example for people on and off the field.
Juventus beat Salernitana 3-0 in Serie A on Tuesday, with striker Dusan Vlahovic scoring two goals and setting up another to lift the visitors to 10th in the table.
Vlahovic, a Serb who has been injured a lot this season but played in the league for the first time since October, found his old form again in this match.
Hans Nicolussi gave Juventus a penalty kick when he sent Manuel Locatelli off in the 26th minute. Vlahovic converted the penalty.
Vlahovic almost scored a second goal in the 37th minute, but his shot from the edge of the box from an acute angle went just past the post.
At the end of the first half, Filip Kostic made it 2-0 when he tapped the ball in from close range after Vlahovic’s initial shot had bounced into his path.
In the last seconds before the halftime break, Locatelli ran into the penalty area unchallenged and gave Juventus a chance to score a third goal. However, Salernitana goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa reacted quickly to prevent Locatelli from lobbing the ball over him.
80 seconds into the second half, Vlahovic scored his second goal when he ran through the penalty area and shot the ball flat into the right corner.
In the 51st minute, Junior Zambia hit a cross that reached almost everyone in the box, but Salernitana striker Boulaye Dia could not stretch far enough to put the ball in the open net.
“The team responded well and we played a good first half. But after taking a 3-0 lead, we got a little too comfortable and allowed too many shots on goal. We did not move enough and stayed in the same places, and the players know we have to do better,” Allegri said.
“In the first 10 minutes we played the ball too often down the right side. We need to improve the passing game, become more supple and keep things simple.”
Angel Di Maria hit the crossbar after 53 minutes and Moise Kean hit the post just before the end of the game, preventing Juve from adding to their tally.
The win moved Juventus to 26 points after 21 games, while Salernitana dropped to 21 points and 16th place.
Vinicius Junior is a great winger for Real Madrid. He is young, talented, exciting and successful. Moreover, he is black and comes from Brazil. In my opinion, he is treated terribly in Spanish football and in some parts of the country. Partly because of the colour of his skin. What is happening is a disgrace, and people who are fair, decent, and honest should be outraged and protesting about it.
Last season, when he was still 21 years old, he was part of the best, most important and exciting duo in all of football. He and Karim Benzema combined to score and set up 100 goals and assists as Real Madrid won the Spanish and European titles simultaneously for the second time in 64 years. He played a huge part in this amazing achievement.
This season, Vinicius Jr was involved in 19 goals in 31 games (13 goals and 6 assists), in a team plagued by injuries. When Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema was out with an injury, Vinicius Jr had to take over Benzema’s duties. He’s doing a good job, even if Madrid is finding it difficult to play as consistently and strongly as they did last season.
At 22 years old, he is a winger, not a goalkeeper, not an organising midfielder, and not an experienced centre back. I say that because it’s important that you understand how important he’s become: he’s by far Madrid’s most used player this season and has played more minutes than anyone else. He has been in the starting eleven in 31 of Los Blancos’ 32 games and has played in all of them.
The European champion will play at least 25 more games this season, but could play up to 32 more. If all else remained the same, this young man with what Carlo Ancelotti calls “amazing, elite athleticism and robustness” would be in every single starting eleven XI of the Italian coach’s squad, which could be 64 games.
But if those who bully, provoke, insult and attack him here in Spain have their way, this rising star, who finished eighth in last year’s Ballon d’Or voting, will be injured or suspended for most of those games. That’s how bad people are who try to hurt Vinicius Junior .
In recent weeks, Vinicius has worked hard to play well even though almost everyone else on Ancelotti’s team has struggled for one reason or another. He’s had to watch a picture of him being hung from a bridge in Madrid, he’s had to deal with racist abuse from fans that LaLiga has confirmed in several games this season, and he’s had to deal with Valencia’s Gabriel Paulista trying to kick him in the air, which was an outrageous and unacceptable action. Vinicius is fouled more often than any other player in any of the top five European leagues. He also has to listen to or read a lot of stupid sayings from people who should know better that he, Vinicius Junior , is the problem.
If all this happened to a young, white Spaniard, I think there would be a huge outcry of horror, and everyone would agree on who is right and who is wrong. Even though I have no proof, this is my honest and firm opinion.
Mallorca isn’t the only villain in this situation, but they’re a good example of how Spain and Spanish football are letting Vinicius Junior down. Over the weekend, the winger was fouled 10 more times. In Madrid’s 1-0 defeat, opposing and home fans created a hostile environment, but not always. One of his attackers, Pablo Maffeo, tricked the referee into giving him a yellow card.
Alejandro Hernandez Hernandez, the referee, would have needed eyes in the back of his head and three or four assistants to keep track of all the tricks used to hurt, bully and annoy the young Brazilian star. Since Isco in 2013, no Madrid player has been fouled as many times every nine minutes as Vinicius at Son Moix. Ten years without such treatment.
The behaviour of most Mallorca players is sad and underhanded, because they started this growing grudge, turned it into strategic bullying, and proved that George Bernard Shaw was right when he said that wrestling with pigs is a bad idea. “Never wrestle with pigs. You’ll both get dirty, but the pigs will love it,” said the great Irish playwright.
In other words, there are some fights you shouldn’t get into, because even if you win, you always end up looking bad. That’s how it’s gone so far between Vinicius and Maffeo, Martin Valjent and Antonio Raillo, all playing for Mallorca.
This rivalry was evident in Madrid’s 3-0 win on the island in March. Referee Jose Maria Sanchez Martinez saw nothing wrong with Maffeo’s lunge with his legs outstretched and studs against Vinicius, which hit both of the winger’s legs, right shin and left knee. When Vinicius refused Maffeo’s offer to pick him up off the ground, a scuffle ensued. Valjent and Raillo both walked up to the Brazilian, poked him in the chest and told him to shut up. Maffeo grabbed Vinicius by the shirt and yelled at him for not shaking hands and complained to the referee. Vinicius was given a card for his protest, which meant that the one who had committed a nasty, deliberate flying tackle that should have resulted in a straight red card and a long suspension got off unpunished.
Since then, these and other players have been trying to make people believe that Vinicius is the problem.
The Brazilian player has begun to defend himself against the insults they and other thugs hurl at him. He calls them names, asks the referees to protect him, and makes angry and frustrated gestures to the sky. In Paulista’s case last week, Vinicius jumped up from the ground where he had fallen and ran toward his Brazilian colleague. He almost struck, but managed to stop himself just in time.
At this point, it’s clear that Vinicius isn’t without blame. He’s now stuck in the mud.
As G.B. Shaw warned, people who want to paint the Brazilian as a “bad guy” or a “problem” can now use his aggressive response to the attacks as false evidence of his guilt, thanks to their bad behaviour and the incredibly short attention span of some media and fans. Gaslighting is underhanded and cannot be tolerated. That’s just the way it’s.
The other day, Maffeo said: “When I was in school, my teachers said I wasn’t very good at following rules. My mother told me that the teachers can’t all have it in for me, so I must be doing something wrong. I think Vinicius feels the same way. We don’t all have it in for him, we just think there must be something.”
In the days leading up to the game, Raillo said, “If I ever had to show my kid two great Madrid players, it would be [Luka] Modric or [Toni] Kroos, but never Vinicius
Last month, when Madrid overturned a 2-0 deficit to beat Villarreal 3-2 in the Copa del Rey, Vinicius scored the first goal. After the game, a short-tempered journalist asked Ancelotti, “…but with Vinicius there are always some problems…” The Italian replied, “From what I saw, his opponents kicked him a lot today, as they always do.”
Ancelotti said Sunday afternoon, “Today the referee didn’t care about the many fouls. When fouls happen over and over again, the player should be sent off. Vinicius isn’t to blame for what is happening. He just wants to play football, but his opponents make it difficult for him because they foul him. In this case, the focus on the outside world has to change. Now it’s time to find out what happened to Vinicius today
During the night, when Paulista tried to pull Vinicius’ leg away from his body, the winger’s Madrid teammates reacted in a very important way. Previously, they often left him to himself and gave him the ball as soon as the game started again, so he could hurt the people who disturbed him.
Not this time. They also know that things will soon get completely out of control.
The Valencia defender was sought by Eduardo Camavinga, Aurelien Tchouameni, Dani Ceballos and even an injured Eder Militao. It was a clear and threatening “all for one and one for all” moment that should send a message to all future rivals: If you come for him, we’ll come for you.
Nacho’s message after the defeat in Mallorca was more moderate, like Ancelotti’s. He said, “I think people are creating a bad environment for Vinicius, which doesn’t help anyone, least of all him. We all love football, so let’s stop being so stupid”
A wise theme that is both balanced and hopeful.
Worryingly, vengeful opponents have noticed that Vinicius is often prepared for four fights at the start of every game: against his teammate, against the other team, against the referee and against the fans. This is because he’s drawn into a well-planned and malicious campaign to “hunt Vinicius down and then gas him.” He’ll eventually be distracted from his main goal, which is to win games. In the end, he’ll take out his frustration and anger on himself and be sent away. Eventually, the circus will get even bigger.
Can’t Maffeo, Valjent, Raillo, Paulista and people like them realise that their actions give racists a reason to do things like call Vinicius racist names on Sunday and hang the effigy on a bridge before the Madrid derby last month?
The way Vinicius is being treated is a big, ugly and increasingly bad problem for Spanish football. It’s time for everyone who sees things as they really are to keep raising their voices until this brilliant artist can do his work without being treated badly because of who he’s or the colour of his skin.
Lionel Messi has expressed guilt for his actions during and after Argentina’s World Cup quarterfinal victory over the Netherlands in Qatar.
Messi and his teammates were chastised after winning on penalties after a 2-2 stalemate on December 9.
The Paris Saint-Germain star celebrated his 73rd-minute penalty goal by sprinting in front of Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal and cupping his ears.
Messi said Van Gaal “disrespected” Argentina in his “pregame statements” after the game.
In a Paris interview with Andy Kusnetzoff’s “Perros de la Calle,” Messi claimed, “I knew what Van Gaal had said but it [the goal celebration] happened on the spur of the moment.”
“I hated my actions and what followed. Nervous situations arise swiftly.”
At full-time, the Argentina captain argued with Van Gaal and Edgar Davids.
During a postgame interview, Messi supposedly shouted at Netherlands goalkeeper Wout Weghorst, “What are you checking fool out? Bring there back.”
In the interim, Messi expressed he wouldn’t have it differently, in spite of the huge delay to lift the World Cup.
Argentina won their first World Cup in quite a while on punishments against France in Qatar, Messi’s fifth World Cup.
“On the off chance that I needed to pick a second, I guess it would have been this one,” Messi expressed. “It’s close to the furthest limit of my vocation, finishing a circle.
“I achieved all that I had expected with the public group. Separately, I accomplished everything in my profession. It was a fitting finish to my vocation.
“I never envisioned any of this would happen to me when I began, and arriving at this point has been the best… I have no issues and can’t request much else.
“We won the Copa America [2021] and the World Cup; nothing else is left.”
Messi communicated lament that Diego Maradona couldn’t see Argentina’s most memorable World Cup triumph since the Napoli star helped his nation in lifting the prize in 1986.
Maradona, Messi’s mentor at the 2010 World Cup, passed on in December 2020.
“I wish Diego Maradona had given me the [World] Cup or in any event seen all of this,” Messi added.
“To have seen Argentina as title holders, considering the amount he looked for it and the amount he cherished the public group. I accept he from a position of great authority, as well as numerous others who care for me, invigorated me.”
De Zorzi now has a chance to become the star he has always wanted to be.
The collapse that never came at Hagley Oval involving Sri Lanka
India’s trust is rewarded by Bharat’s skill behind the stumps.
South Africa’s World Cup dreams have taken a major hit.
In a comfortable fashion, England completed their best run chase in England vs India Tests to tie India’s Test series at 2-2.
