The Italian footballer Luigi Riva, who has died aged 79, was his nation’s all-time main scorer with 35 targets in 42 worldwide appearances between 1965 and 1974. A swift and lethal ahead, he established his fame by benefiting from the restricted alternatives provided to attackers confronting the strict defensive techniques espoused by coaches in Italy’s home league.
Just below six toes tall, with a saturnine visage, a lean construct and a devastating combination of pace and taking pictures energy, “Gigi” Riva scored the primary of two targets within the remaining of the 1968 European championships, giving Italy victory over a extremely rated Yugoslavia staff in Rome. Two years later in Mexico Metropolis he scored in Italy’s enthralling 4-3 victory in additional time over West Germany in a World Cup semi-final, earlier than making a lot much less impression as he and his teammates have been humbled 4-1 within the remaining by Pelé’s resplendent Brazil.
However Riva is most fondly remembered because the star of a membership staff from Sardinia who, underneath the coach Manlio Scopigno, generally known as “the thinker”, received the Italian first division championship in 1969-70. Solely six years after main Cagliari to promotion from the second tier, Riva unlocked catenaccio (doorbolt formation) defences to attain the targets with which they captured the Serie A title from the northern giants of Turin and Milan.
The depth of that Sardinian affection could possibly be seen at his funeral, held within the metropolis the place he had seen out his taking part in profession regardless of profitable affords from Juventus and different golf equipment, and the place he lived for the remainder of his life. An estimated 30,000 folks – nearly twice the present capability of the membership’s stadium – congregated in Cagliari outdoors the Basilica of Our Woman of Bonaria, waving flags, banners and scarves in the dead of night purple and blue membership colors he had worn with such distinction.
The presence among the many pallbearers of the defender Fabio Cannavaro and the goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, two heroes of Italy’s groups of the twenty first century, represented a salute to Riva’s function later in life. Between 1988 and 2013 he served because the Azzurri’s staff supervisor, his perform seemingly iconic quite than sensible, alongside head coaches together with Arrigo Sacchi, Cesare Maldini, Dino Zoff, Giovanni Trapattoni and Marcello Lippi. As a sublime chain-smoking elder statesman, Riva was with Lippi when Italy beat France to win the 2006 remaining in Berlin.
Born in Leggiuno, a small city in Varese, near Lake Maggiore and the Swiss border, he was the youngest of the 4 youngsters of Edis and Ugo Riva. His father, who had labored as a tailor and a barber earlier than taking a manufacturing unit job, died in an accident at work when Luigi was 9, leaving Edis to take employment as a maid to help her son and three daughters, Lucia, Candida and Fausta. When Edis additionally died, Luigi was despatched to a Catholic boarding college for 3 years earlier than returning house to work in a manufacturing unit, whereas taking part in soccer for the Lavegno Mombello youth staff, scoring 63 targets in two seasons.
In 1962 he joined Legnano, a membership within the third division. After one season with them he moved up a tier when Cagliari provided a switch price of 37m lire (then value about £25,000, or about £650,000 right this moment). In 13 seasons and 374 video games with the Sardinian membership he scored 204 targets, a few of them with highly effective headers however most together with his formidable left foot, in honour of which the journalist Gianni Brera awarded him the nickname Rombo di tuono (Thunderclap). Profitable his first worldwide cap in 1965, aged 20, he grew to become the primary Cagliari participant to obtain such recognition.
Throughout his greatest years he figured extremely within the annual contest for the Ballon d’Or, the award for Europe’s greatest footballer. He completed second in 1969, behind his compatriot Gianni Rivera, the golden boy of AC Milan’s midfield, and third the next yr, behind Gerd Müller of West Germany and Bobby Moore of England.
Three months after the defeat by Brazil in Mexico in 1970, Riva’s proper leg was damaged by a sort out from an Austrian defender throughout a European championship qualifying match in Vienna. He returned to beat Giuseppe Meazza’s file of 33 worldwide targets and to play a component in Italy’s first away victory over England at Wembley in 1973. However throughout Italy’s look within the 1974 World Cup finals in West Germany he was unable to regain his former stage, making his final look for the Azzurri as they went out within the group stage.
Leg accidents suffered in a sort out by an AC Milan defender in 1976 led, after a number of unsuccessful comeback makes an attempt, to his formal retirement two years later, aged 33. He based a soccer college that bears his identify and served a brief time period as Cagliari’s president.
He’s survived by Gianna Tofanari, his former companion, with whom he remained on pleasant phrases after their separation, his sons, Nicola and Mauro, and 5 grandchildren.
