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In the aftermath of the First World War, the city of Fiume’s passage to Italy emerged from the instability that followed the collapse of Austria-Hungary, which left it suspended between competing national claims.

Both Italy and the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes saw it as their own, turning the port into one of the Adriatic’s most symbolic disputes. In September 1919 the poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio marched in with a band of volunteers and proclaimed the Italian Regency of Carnaro, an audacious, short-lived experiment in nationalist politics and spectacle.

A year later D’Annunzio was expelled from the city by Italian troops leading to the creation of the internationally recognised Free State of Fiume, a fragile compromise that survived only a few years.

Political instability, a coup, and the rise of Mussolini in Italy paved the way for the Treaty of Rome of 27 January 1924, which dissolved the Free State: the city was annexed to Italy, while Sušak passed to Yugoslavia, fixing a border that reflected the tensions of the age.

By the time of D’Annunzio proclamation, football had already formed deep roots in the city. Club Sportivo Olimpia had been founded in 1904 with its football section beginning official activity on 25 November 1906.

In 1917, Club Sportivo Gloria was founded as a workers’ club of the city. The two sides quickly became the main rivals in local championships, representing respectively the wealthier and the more popular classes of Fiume.

All this changed in 1926 when both teams were compelled to join forces to form Unione Sportiva Fiumana.

The origins of the merger, as with many others that took place around the same time, were rooted in the deep crisis that shook the FIGC in the spring of that year, a moment the fascist regime used to reshape Italian football along new political and organisational lines.

The Viareggio Charter of 2 August that year created the Divisione Nazionale, the direct forerunner of Serie A, and promoted a model based on stronger, unified urban clubs. Internal rivalries were seen as wasteful and socially divisive; in their place the regime ‘encouraged’ mergers that would mirror its ideal of collective discipline.

In a border city such as Fiume, where questions of identity were already politically charged, the policy was applied with particular speed.

There was, however, also a clear sporting logic. By bringing together the two strongest local sides, the city aimed to present a single, competitive representative capable of holding its own at national level, especially after the construction of a new stadium gave Fiume a stage worthy of higher ambitions.

That stadium, opened in 1925 in the Borgomarina district, had been carved dramatically out of the mountainside. Known in the Italian years as the Stadio Comunale del Littorio and today as Kantrida, it became the physical and symbolic home of the new entity.

The club’s identity drew consciously on the recent past: its cardinal red, blue and yellow colours echoed the tricolour of the former Free State of Fiume. On the pitch this translated into cardinal red shirts, blue shorts and blue socks trimmed with maroon and yellow.

The team began its life in the interregional Prima Divisione, then the second tier of Italian football, carrying with it both the weight of political design and the more familiar, universal hope that unity might bring sporting strength.

On the field the new club grew into its role with a mixture of steady progress and abrupt turns that mirrored the volatility of the era. In its first championship, 1926–27, Fiumana finished fifth in Group B of the Prima Divisione, a respectable placing that suggested consolidation rather than immediate prominence. The following season brought a sharper rise: third place out of ten and, above all, victory in the Coppa Federale, the first tangible silverware for the unified side and a sign that the project carried real competitive weight.

Its entry into the expanded Divisione Nazionale in 1928–29 came not only through sporting merit but through politics. Initially excluded, Fiumana was admitted at the last moment to replace the vacancy created by the enforced merger of Inter and US Milanese, part of a broader strategy to strengthen the presence of clubs from the “redeemed lands” on the national stage.

Yet the step up proved too demanding. A fourteenth-place finish consigned the team to relegation to the newly formed Serie B, and a year later, after finishing bottom, it slipped back into the interregional world.

It was in this third tier that Fiumana spent most of the 1930s, first the Prima Divisione, then, from 1935, Serie C. There was to be on final ascent, however, as the Serie C title of 1940–41 returned the club to Serie B, only for survival to be missed by two points the following year, behind Savona.

War, however, was already closing in.

The 1942–43 Serie C campaign, which saw US Fiumana finish in an honourable third place, became the last Italian championship the club would play.

In the spring of 1943 Fiumana dissolved, its story ending quietly after a 4–1 victory over Vittorio Veneto on 14 March.

The war brought to an end not only a championship but an entire civic and cultural framework. After the Italian armistice of September 1943, Fiume passed under German occupation, becoming part of the collapsing architecture of the Axis frontier. The change was abrupt and heavy with uncertainty, and when Tito’s Yugoslav army entered the city in May 1945 it marked the definitive end of Italian rule and of the world in which Fiumana had been created.

The political settlement followed soon after. The Treaty of Paris in 1947 formally transferred Fiume and the whole of Istria from Italy to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, turning a military reality into an internationally recognised border. What had been a contested Adriatic city for decades now began a new life under a different name, Rijeka, and within a different state.

The transition was not merely administrative but reshaped the human geography of the city. Between twenty and thirty-eight thousand Italians - from a city that had previously contained around sixty thousand souls - left in the years that followed, part of the wider Istrian exodus that emptied the city.

In 1948 the former Yugoslav suburb of Sušak was formally merged with Rijeka, completing a process that created a single, unified city out of what had long been divided space. What emerged was not simply a renamed Fiume, but a new place, carrying within it the layered memory of the one that had disappeared.

Football still managed to survive. In 1946 the local Trade Union Representative Team looked to take part in the new Yugoslav championship that was due to begin the following autumn despite the city of Fiume designation as a military occupation zone.

Participation in the competition could only be achieved with a name and a legal identity that would be acceptable to the new authorities; continuing with the US Fiumana was not an option.

The solution was to found a new club, Società Cultura Fisica Quarnero a deliberately neutral title that, soon afterwards, was joined by its Croatian form, Kvarner, making the institution officially bilingual.

In substance, it was a continuation. The founding members, players and directors of Fiumana passed almost entirely into the new entity.

That fragile balance between languages and identities lasted less than a decade. In 1954, at a moment of heightened tension between Italy and Yugoslavia, the Titoist authorities abolished the city’s bilingual status. The club was compelled to follow suit, dropping the dual name and becoming simply Rijeka; a final, symbolic step in the long transition from the world in which Fiumana had once played.

And yet, the story of US Fiumana still echoes on. HNK Rijeka, the club that replaced it and changed the kit to an all white one, would go on to win Rijeka two Croatian First Football League titles, two Yugoslav Cups and seven Croatian Cups. Its official year of foundation, however, remains 1904, a quiet but telling acknowledgement that the teams which represented the city in different states, languages and championships all belong to the same unbroken narrative.

Honours Won:

Coppa Federale Winners: 1927–28

Serie C Winners: 1940–41

Serie C Second place: 1942–43 (Group A)

Prima Divisione Second place: 1934–35 (Group A)

Each week on Cultured Football we pick the five great football stories from the previous seven days.

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Goalkeepers, it is often said, are different. You have to be when in a game where the ultimate aim is to put the ball between the goalposts you dedicate yourself to stop it from doing so. There is often little glory to be had and the expectation that you are willing to do anything – including throwing yourself into trashing boots – to get hold of the ball. It is a tough, unglamorous and thanklessness job. So why would anyone decide to become a goalkeeper?

“I wasn’t good enough to play outfield!”

Ruud Hesp laughs as he recalls how it was that he picked up goalkeepers’ gloves for the first time. “I was always big. I started as a striker, moved to midfield and in the end I was a central defender because I was the biggest player and I could head the ball well so they moved me over there.”

It is there that he would have stayed if fate hadn’t intervened. “When I was twelve years old I played at an amateur club and the goalkeeper was sick, the second goalkeeper had to play a table tennis game so they said ‘Ruud will you go in goal?’ because I was playing goalkeeper at my school. I played very well in that first game and they said ‘you stay in goal’. And I liked it. So it was a coincidence that I became a goalkeeper.”

This seems to be the conventional path for most goalkeepers. The main difference for Hesp was that he was good enough at it to make a career out of goalkeeping. Most of this career was spent playing for mid-size clubs who often lagged behind the three giants of Dutch football. He was good enough to catch the attention of Dutch national coaches but call-ups never turned into appearances.

Then, at the age of thirty two, he received a surprise call: Barcelona wanted to sign him.

Louis Van Gaal had just been re-appointed manager and it was on his recommendation that Hesp was approached. Barcelona had signed Vitor Baia the previous summer but whilst the Portuguese was at the time considered among the world’s finest goalkeepers not everyone was convinced.

“Van Gaal had already tried to sign me for Ajax but there was Edwin Van Der Saar there and I knew that he was better than me. I didn’t fancy going to Ajax to be a reserve so I turned him down. Clearly, he must have thought highly enough of me that he mentioned me when he moved to Spain.”

“After a couple of weeks, Baia got injured and I stepped into his place.”

Hesp retained his place even when the Portuguese goalkeeper recovered – indeed, Baia was loaned back to Porto midway through the season - and he eventually went on to win two league titles, a European Super Cup and a Copa Del Rey in his three years with the Catalan giants. “Barcelona are the biggest club in the world and playing for them was amazing,” he says.

After Barcelona he went into coaching and was the goalkeepers’ coach of the Dutch national side that reached the World Cup final in 2010. “When Edwin Van der Saar played his first national game I was the second goalkeeper,” he recalls. “When he played his last national game I was there as the national team’s goalkeeping coach.”

By that stage, Hesp had started to put the experience that he had garnered to the benefit of others as a goalkeeper’s coach and the main current beneficiaries are the PSV goalkeepers, where Hesp works.

“When I arrived Jeroen Zoet was already at the club although at the time he was on loan at a smaller club to get experience. We put him at a smaller club where he could play a lot of games, develop himself and get back.”

“When he started to play no one expected anything of him. The next year people started having expectations. He was expected to play better than the previous year, he had to be important for the team, to win points for the team. And then the pressure starts to come.”

“So it is very important that you have played a lot of games to be able to put the pressure less for yourself. If you are young it is more difficult - and I experienced the same - but if you are older it is easier for yourself. You get more stable in your head. You don’t panic that fast.”

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This importance of experience might sound like a cliché but Hesp can point at particular moments in his career that support this.

“When I played for Barcelona, I always enjoyed playing in Nou Camp but also in other stadia. For Barcelona, the best club in Europe; the world maybe. It gave me a lot of confidence. When I started playing for Barcelona I was already 31 years old so that was an advantage for me as I had already played a lot of games. Not at the highest level because in Holland I had played for smaller teams, but I had played a lot of games.”

“I had the experience of recognising situations in a game. And then it doesn’t matter if it is at the highest level or at the lowest level, if you recognise situations then you can perform well. That was, for me, an advantage.”

There is a particular moment where the benefit of this experience stuck out. “I can give you an example. When I played for Barcelona against Chelsea in 1998, we lost at Chelsea 3-1 so needed to win 2-0. We were leading 2-0 and I received a ball that I played badly. I wanted to kick it long but instead gave to the Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo and he scored; 2-1.”

“In the end we won and went through but at that moment we still had to play 15 minutes to score another goal. After that mistake, in the next minute, Frank Lampard shot at goal because maybe he thought that I was insecure or my confidence had gone. And it was a ball that was swerving in the air. The ball came just to the right side of me, I got it and I held it. That was the first moment after the mistake.”

“Afterwards I was trying to analyse what happened and I realised that I had been able to analyse the mistake as one with my kicking, not a mistake of catching the ball.”

“So I instinctively realised that a mistake of my passing should not influence my goalkeeping (shot stopping). And that is what I try to explain to our goalkeepers, even our youth goalkeepers. One mistake does not have to influence other parts of your goalkeeping. But that comes with experience. That’s difficult in the beginning.”

The benefit of his experience played out even off the pitch. “Before Barcelona I played in Roda and we had a lot of foreign guys who couldn’t speak the language.”

“They walked past supporters who wanted to speak to them but they couldn’t talk back. I always thought to myself that if I ever moved to another country I wanted to know the language because I wanted to speak to the people. And it is easier on the pitch.”

“So there was a translator who was always helping the new foreign players with the press conferences. He started doing the same with me for one month but afterwards I started doing them in Spanish.”

“I made a lot of mistakes but afterwards the journalists came to me to tell me that it was great that I was doing so after one month. They appreciated it and they gave me tips of what to say in certain situations. So I started talking Spanish really quickly. And I also asked people. Speaking the language is very important.”

Hesp is clearly passionate about his job and loves what he does but there he admits that being a coach is second best to actually playing.

“As a goalkeeper you think you have control of the situation and you can influence the situation. As a goalkeeper trainer your influence lasts until the players get on to the pitch. Then it stops. That is the big difference.”

“As a goalkeeper coach you cannot make corrections on the pitch. Then it stops. That is the big difference.”

“When I started as a goalkeeper coach I was more nervous than when I was a player.”

“Being a goalkeeper is the most beautiful thing to do and being a goalkeeper’s coach is the second most beautiful thing to do. I enjoy coaching young players because they’re hungry to learn about the game and eager to hear what you have to say. I really enjoy what I’m doing at a very beautiful club.”

At PSV he is tasked with coaching not only the first team players but also those players coming through the ranks meaning that he is tasked with continuing the rich Dutch tradition for great goalkeepers.

“I think that it is because in Holland we spend a lot of time training goalkeepers. Even in the old days. In Holland everyone had his goalkeeper’s coach and that has been the case for a lot of years. Before other countries started having a goalkeeper trainer in Holland we already had that,” he says of this tradition.

“We always thought in Holland that goalkeepers were very important and that they are the foundation of the team. You can have good players but if the goalkeeper isn’t good enough then you have a problem. A house is built on a good foundation. It is the same with goalkeepers.”

“That is why in Holland we spend a lot of time on goalkeeper training. When I started my career in professional football it was only shooting at the goal but I got the attention.”

“I’ve had a lot of goalkeeper trainers myself and now I’m doing it. It is good to have a goalkeeper coach because he sees and feels the thing you feel. For me (as a coach) it is much easier to see into the head of a goalie. A goalie can come to me and ask me things on why it happened and I can talk to him about it.”

“These days games are decided by details and having a good goalkeeping coach can be a very important detail.”

“Today all players are very fit, they have power, and they are well conditioned. So in those cases you look for the details and it can help make you champions.”

The 30th of May marks the anniversary of one of Liverpool FC’s most significant achievements: winning their fourth European Cup against Roma in Rome itself. Rarely has the final of Europe’s elite competition been played in front of such a partisan crowd. Rarely has victory seemed more improbable. But win Liverpool did, in a penalty shoot-put, much to the despair of thousands of Romanisti.

Unsurprisingly, whilst that anniversary is celebrated in Liverpool, the opposite is the case in Rome. That European Cup final would have marked the first continental success as well as the most important achievement of what was probably the finest team in the Giallorossi’s history. It should have provided the foundations for the club to continue to build and dominate; to fully emerge from the shadow of Italy’s northern giants.

Instead, defeat marked the beginning of the end. That summer, Roma’s charismatic and inspirational head-coach Nils Liedholm left for AC Milan. A year later, midfield genius Paulo Roberto Falcao decided to return to Brazil and as the team was broken up, the club slowly slid back to mediocrity. Roma had messed up their date with history and no one felt this more than their captain.

Agostino di Bartolomei was more than simply a player for Roma. His talent had been apparent from an early age to anyone who bothered to look. Mesmerised by his control and eye for a pass, Milan tried to sign him as a 13 year old but he refused to leave his beloved Rome, despite the fact no side from the capital had shown an interest in him.

It was a risky decision but the choice to reject one of Italy’s giants was an early indicator of another of di Bartolomei’s qualities: the unflinching confidence he had in himself and his opinions.

A year later he was vindicated when Roma promptly offered a deal, set up after their then tecnico, Helenio Herrera, saw him play in a trial match. Four years later, he made his first team debut and, after a season spent at Vicenza to gain experience, he returned to cement his place in Roma’s first team.

By this time, he had evolved from a midfielder to a central defender. There he shone bright for the preciseness of his long-range passes, the ingenuity of his vision and, most of all, the power of his shot that guaranteed a regular flow of goals. It was these qualities that endeared him to the Roma fans, particularly those in the Curva Sud, who idolised him through song.

“Oh Agostino, Ago, Ago, Agostino Gol”, they would bellow.

It was the kind of special relationship that can only exist between a player and the people of his city. And that is what drove di Bartolomei mad at the Champions Cup final defeat. He sensed that they wouldn’t get a similar opportunity again. He felt that those fans would never taste the joy of winning a European Cup.

That frustration boiled over in the aftermath of the game. It is rumoured that in the dressing room he quarrelled fiercely with Falcao who, somewhat inexplicably, wasn’t among the penalty takers. Some versions go as far to suggest that Di Bartolomei pinned Falcao to the wall, such was his anger at the Brazilian’s defection when his club needed him most.

What actually happened in that dressing room is unlikely to ever be revealed, yet the stories persist because they fit with what was known of his character.

Di Bartolomei was never one to let things he did not like pass. He always voiced his opinions and never held back his criticism. This forthright approach was the reason why one of the most talented players of his generation never got an Italy cap, and why he consequently missed out on another medal, that of World Cup winner with Italy in 1982. That didn’t bother Di Bartolomei. Or, if it did, he didn’t show it. After all, he had his club and his fans.

Soon, however, the first of those was taken away. Sven Goran Eriksson took over from Nils Liedholm as Roma coach and the club decided that they had garnered what they needed from Di Bartolomei. He was told that the club to which he had dedicated so much didn’t require his services anymore. Once again, it was whispered that he was seen as being too outspoken, too much of a troublemaker.

The fans took umbrage to the rejection, protesting against the decision and put up a huge banner with the slogan: ‘Ti Hanno Tolto La Roma Ma Non La Tua Curva’ – ‘They’ve Taken Roma Away From You But Not Your Curva’. But the decision stood.

Di Bartolomei moved to AC Milan, a club then recovering from the Totonero betting scandal that had seen them relegated to the Serie B. Still, when his new club came across his old one on October 14, they were enjoying a fine start. The arrivals of Hateley, Virdis, Wilkins, and Di Bartolomei himslef had noticeably raised the team’s technical quality. For an hour, the game remained goal-less until a loose pass reached Roma's midfielder Toninho Cerezo.

The Brazilian felt he was in the clear but hadn't counted on the determination and strength of Di Bartolomei, who wrestled the ball from his feet and drove straight toward goal. Roma fans, who had seen that move plenty of times in previous years, could tell what was going to happen next.

A deft touch with the outside of his right foot to bring the ball under control, then another to guide it diagonally past Tancredi and into the net.

Many, in later years, have opted for muted celebration when scoring against former team. Not so Di Bartolomei, his celebration was unfiltered and full of emotion. His euphoric outburst was probably aimed at those who had gotten rid of him, who thought he was finished. But it annoyed the fans all the same. When, in the return match he got into a fist-fight with Ciccio Graziani, that relationship disintegrated even further. If there were any hopes that he might be called back to the capital, they ended there.

Di Bartolomei spent three years in Milan and earned the nickname of Sant’ Agostino (Saint Agostino) because of his reluctance to go out and party, despite the city’s famous night spots. At the time, it seemed that this was a sign of Di Bartolomei’s maturity and realisation that he wouldn’t be able to go on playing if he spent his time in nightclubs. With hindsight, there was probably more to it. Di Bartolomei had become subdued and melancholic; Roma’s rejection had hurt him deeply.

There was further rejection. When Arrigo Sacchi took over as manager, Di Bartolomei quickly found himself surplus to requirements, his skillset at odds with that wanted by the new manager. He moved to Cesena and, eventually, to Salernitana. There the mission was to get the club to the Serie B after an absence of 20 years. Di Bartolomei was 33 at that point but the challenge intrigued and arguably extended his career by two further years. The first one was ruined by a wrong managerial choice but, in the second, with a team built around him, things were different.

With one game to go, Salernitana travelled to Brindisi knowing that a victory could take them up. And victory it was, with Di Bartolomei hitting one of his trademark shots from outside of the penalty area. Soon, news filtered through that Casertana had lost their game meaning that Salernitana were promoted. A week later, promotion was celebrated at home. But when a reporter asked Di Bartolomei of his future, he confirmed that "this has been my last game."

Once he hung up his boots, however, no one seemed to want to know about him. Everywhere he went he found closed doors and rejection. Not even at his beloved Roma was there any role for him to play. Instead he had to make a living elsewhere, setting up a football school and doing some TV commentary. Inside him, the regret grew and began to transform into something much darker. This was until he could stand those thoughts no more.

On the morning of the 30 May 1994 – ten years after the European Cup final – Agostino Di Bartolomei took out his gun, pointed it at his chest and pulled the trigger. Romanisti thus remember this day as an anniversary of profound sorrow, one on which they lost a European final and more importantly, a favourite son and club legend.

No better epitaph can ever be attributed to Ago di Bartolomei than the words written by Italian journalist Gianni Mura upon his poignant death:

“True captains may die and even choose to die but forgetting them is impossible.”

This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on The Gentleman Ultra.

The following is an extract from the book Master of the Azzurri: The Life and Times of Enzo Bearzot.  Subscribers to Cultured Football get a free copy of this book in their welcome mail.  Anyone else who wants to buy a copy can do so here.

“As a decent person.”

Even among the greats of Italian sports journalism, Gianni Mura is considered a giant.  A writer rather than simply a journalist – he also penned several successful novels – Mura was known for his insightful commentary, deep knowledge of sport and an engaging writing style.  Those talents would have counted for little had they not been combined with a deep sense of empathy.  People knew that he wasn’t the kind of journalist who made his reputation by bringing down others; that he was interested in what truly went through players’ mind rather than an easy headline.

Because of that, they opened up to him.  They gave him deep answers to questions they usually replied to with cliches.  And so, when he asked Enzo Bearzot how he wanted to be remembered, the former Italy manager gave him the four-worded answer above.

Others probably remember Bearzot for different reasons.  He was the man who led Italy to their third World Cup in 1982.  His was the team that stunned Brazil in one of the greatest games in the competition’s history.  It was his tactical pragmatism, built as per Italian tradition on a solid defence, that allowed them to scale those heights.  For many, that made him a great manager above all other things.

Yet, Bearzot was more than merely that.  By his own admission, he had three loves in his life: football, the game he had discovered as a child; Luisa, the woman he met at a train station and who became his wife for five decades; and literature, which he first came into contact with at school with the Salesians.

Unsurprisingly then, Bearzot’s thoughts on his career reflected the soul of a writer.  “Happiness,” he said, “is like a breeze that occasionally caresses the face. But wounds, even moral ones, never fade away; they mark you for a lifetime.”

That he would say that decades after his success in Spain is telling, for they echo a thought that had been with him since that summer of 1982.

***

Bearzot’s side arrived in Spain under a dark cloud.  Despite doing well and playing attractive football on the way to an unexpected fourth place finish at the 1978 World Cup, Bearzot had never won over his detractors in the media who rarely lost an opportunity to publicly call for his dismissal.

Much of their criticism centred on his refusal to deviate from a squad selection heavy with Juventus players.  The choice of Paolo Rossi, who had played just a handful of games before the 1982 World Cup as he sat out a two year suspension over match fixing, instead of Roma’s league top-scorer Roberto Pruzzo was seen as an affront to the national team.

The calls for Bearzot’s head increased in the first round of the tournament when Italy failed to win a single game in their group stages and only just squeezed through on goals scored.  Things got so bad that the players decided that they were no longer going to talk to the media, bringing about one of the most famous instances of a silenzio stampa (silence to the media as the press boycott is referred to in Italy).

This, and the resulting siege mentality, seemed to have a miraculous impact on the Italians and they were a different side from the next round onwards.  With Rossi finally finding his form they beat three of the favourites – Argentina, Brazil and West Germany – on the path to winning their third World Cup.

Bearzot was vindicated for his choices and those who criticised him now fell over themselves to praise him.

Decades after Bearzot led Italy to their World Cup triumph in 1982, as football data began being dissected and mined for information, it would emerge that the Italian great had instinctively understood what it took to achieve international success.

When the CIES Football Observatory decided to take a look at what the data said about the teams who did best in the World Cup, they discovered that the best-performing teams generally have more stable squads compared to less competitive ones. Turns out that achieving an optimal balance, with around three quarters of the same players retained rather than going purely for the most in-form players is vital for success.

If anything was to change, it was better to change the manager than the core members of the team because that held a lower impact on results.  The strength provided by team stability proves to be more important that other metrics such as league ranking, points, and goals scored.

Bearzot did not need data to tell him as much; his long experience with the national team had taught him that.  He knew that a team wins not merely through the quality of their stars but because of the unity of the eleven on the pitch and their willingness to work for each other.  He also realised that such team culture was impossible to build given the limited time that national team coaches have to spend with their players unless you kept a constant core of players.

“First of all,” he said in a later interview.  “I hold a fundamental principle in high regard: that of prioritizing the team over the individual, of forming a football “family” in the blue jersey, and not just bringing together many skilled football professionals.”

“It is only the strength of the group, only an absolute unity like the one demonstrated by my blues, that could give the National Team the energy for that sensational "crescendo" in Barcelona and Madrid, reaching peak performance a few days after many – even within – had buried us in criticism for the faltering start, for the three draws obtained in the first phase of the World Cup.”

“I often say that my National Team is born not only on the playing field and in the locker room, but also in the dining room, in the hotel rooms where we spend those long days before the game or the “retreats” before the most important matches.”

“When I think of my azzurri, it’s easy for me to draw a comparison with a musical ensemble, with a jazz orchestra. Maybe it’s because I like jazz, a type of music that is born from suffering, that must be performed with intense participation [...] Football is no different from music, even on the field harmony and heart matter, flair and determination: at the right moment a solo is fine, but everyone in the orchestra must know the score well and in the end the applause (or the boos) must be shared among everyone, in equal parts.”

It was this principle that dictated his actions.  He held no aversion to bringing in new players purely to protect the status-quo – his squad in 1982 included 18 year-old defender Beppe Bergomi – but was never going to bring in any player was going to hinder team harmony.

He also knew how to build relationships.  He helped Paolo Rossi as much as he could when his striker was suspended because of the football betting case, visiting him to let him know that he was still in his plans.  Even so, he then took the opportunity to let Rossi know that he was putting on weight.  For that was also how Bearzot managed.  Little emotion, plenty of discipline but above all loyalty.

“Rather than change, I prefer to die with them,” he had exclaimed weeks ahead of the 1982 World Cup.  Nothing summed him up more than that.

This is a Cultured Football Original piece written by Paul Grech.

Evaluating his career without the glow of nostalgia, Toto' Schillaci did well and played for some big clubs, but it was his World Cup that cemented his legacy.   Without it, his name would not be as widely remembered more than three decades after he reached the peak of his career.

Yet Schillaci was a remarkable player.  You had to be, to make it at Juventus back in the 1990s.  Especially for someone like Schillaci who had never set foot in the Serie A before making the move to Turin in 1989.  Not that you would have guessed going by the fifteen goals he scored in his first year in a Juventus shirt; the goals that pushed him into the thoughts of Azeglio Vicini and Italy’s squad for the 1990 World Cup.

That inclusion was also remarkable.  Vicini was a great tactician but not one who liked experimenting.  He had the players he trusted – most of whom had come through the Under 21s with him – and typically he stuck with them.  Yet he must have recognised that you had to at least try out a striker in as good a goalscoring form as Schillaci was that season.    

Called up for Italy’s final game before the tournament (a 1-0 win against Switzerland), Schillaci clearly did enough to convince Vicini that, even though he was not as skilful as the other forwards in the squad, he brought a passion for scoring that was missing elsewhere.  Franco Scoglio, his manager at Messina, had declared that “there is no one in world football with his hunger to score goals”.  It was a sentiment that Vicini agreed with even if he didn’t expressly say it.  Schillaci later recalled that when Vicini first called him up “he told me that he had given me a great opportunity and it was down to me to make the most of it.”

That he certainly did.

With just fifteen minutes on the clock in Italy’s opening game at their home World Cup and the score stuck at 0-0, Vicini turned round and called the Sicilian striker to get ready. 

“Go on and score,” was his  simple instruction.  Three minutes later, Schillaci found himself between two towering Austrian defenders which was precisely the best place to be to meet a looping cross into the box and head home the winner.

Italy had a new hero as the world witnessed the birth of a new icon.  He followed that up with another five goals, each one as crucial in its own way.  The sight of him wheeling away in utter delight became a constant of that World Cup.

Schillaci played two more seasons with Juventus and then two more at Inter before closing his career off with four years at the nascent Japanese League.  Beyond the World Cup he played just ten times for Italy (scoring only once) and never beyond 1991.  He was never anywhere as good as he was between 1988 and that summer of 1990.  His name is never mentioned when lists of the world’s best players are being drafted. 

Yet, it bears repeating: Schillaci was a remarkable player. 

To truly appreciate just how remarkable he was, you have to look at the statistics.  Not of goals scored or xG but of appearances.  Because if you go through the birth places of players who have appeared for the Italian national team you find that just five Sicilians have played for their country. 

Five.

There are currently almost five million Sicilians.  They make up around 8% of Italy’s population.  It has been like that for decades.  Of those millions, however, practically no one makes it to the national team.  These days, almost no one makes it to the Serie A; there is only a handful Sicilian born player among the twenty teams that make up the topflight.

Last July, Inter’s CEO Beppe Marotta – born and raised in the North of Italy of Sicilian parents - was asked about this. 

“I don't want to point fingers or identify culprits, but Sicily is currently disconnected from the football and sports world that matters. If we talk about facilities, comparing Brescia and Palermo, which are similar in terms of population, Brescia has five times as many football academies as Palermo, which has very few.”

“There aren't just structural problems, but also a lack of expertise—not so much passion—to ensure that we can be reliable points of reference for young people.”

When the limelight had faded and his career had come to an end, Schillaci returned home.  He could now afford to live in a wealthier part of Palermo than the rough streets on which he had grown up.  But he also wanted to do something more for his city; his people.

And he achieved this by turning a dusty field, the Louis Ribolla on Via Leonardo da Vinci — the upper stretch leading to Borgo Nuovo — into a football school with luxurious pitches that resembled those of the Stadio Olimpico where he made his name.  

It wasn’t just the renovation of a field; it was the attempt to build a place in this city to give others better chances than he had.  A place where even he must have hoped to discover someone else who could rise from this city, rewrite their destiny, and perhaps even bring joy to all of Italy, if only for a fleeting moment.

That is the most remarkable aspect about Toto’ Schillaci.  He was not the greatest of footballers, but he worked hard and achieved remarkable things with whatever talent he had.  Even more than that, he always worked tirelessly to those who came after me.  “Always believe, till the very end,” he used to tell the children at his schools.

Some took it at heart more than others.  Antonino La Gummina, one of the few Sicilians who made it to the Serie A with Empoli and Sampdoria, began at Schillaci’s school before being picked up by Palermo. 

As Archbishop Corrado Lorefice acknowledged at Schillaci’s funeral “Palermo loses a symbol…a boy of humble origins who made his way despite the obstacles and hostilities encountered along his path, until he became a true icon of national sport.”

For young Sicilian footballers Schillaci remained a point of reference as someone who actually made it.  Even in death, his legacy continues to inspire players to reach new heights.

There’s no greater mark of a remarkable man than that.

Did you know that there could have been another Schillaci in Italy’s squad for the 1990 World Cup? That story, and other unheralded ones from Italia 90, are told in the book Echoes of an Italian Summer.

This is a special issue of Cultured Football: an exclusive and original longform piece about a forgotten game from England’s history. If you’d like to read more original content, let me know.

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When Gianfranco Zola signed for Chelsea in November of 1996, it signaled the first tremor of a seismic shift within European football.  For decades, the Serie A had been the ultimate destination for the world’s best footballers; the league with clubs rich enough to buy any player they wanted.  No one left Italian football unless they were all played out and no longer good enough.

That wasn’t the case with Zola.  Although thirty when he moved to London, he was still a regular both for Parma and the Italian national team.  A few months earlier, despite missing a crucial penalty that resulted in early elimination, he had still been at the heart of much that was good during Italy’s otherwise disappointing Euro 96 campaign.

The transfer also signaled a shift in Chelsea’s status.  One of the architects behind the birth of the Premier League, they were largely viewed an ambitious upstart that was more adventurous than most other English clubs when it came to shopping in Europe for talent.  They’d made an impact by moving for French defender Frank Lebeouf after two visits to the Serie A to get Gianluca Vialli and Ruud Gullit.  Both were veterans with their career’s end well in sight, yet they still added a lot of glamour to a league that largely preferred to shop in Scandinavia.  They’d also bought Roberto di Matteo, another Italy regular at the time but who, as a more defensive player, generated less excitement.

Zola was different.  He was a true star and, importantly, one who immediately felt at home in London.  Zola also transformed Chelsea’s fortunes, pushing them into the elite bracket and winning six trophies with them over the course of seven seasons.  He remained a game changer till the very last, a mesmerizing display against Liverpool on the final day that served to confirm Chelsea’s place in the Champions League at the expense of their opponents.  That also happened to be the game that convinced a certain Roman Abramovich to pour his wealth into Chelsea and forever change English football’s status quo.

Yet, for all the impact that Zola had over those seven years he spent in the Premier League, his first encounter with English football had come well before the day he signed for Chelsea.  And even before his was a name many in Italy could recognise.

It was the summer of 1990 and England’s preparation for the World Cup had been anything but smooth.  The memory of their dismal failure in Euro ’88, when England had started the tournament as favourites and returned home with three defeats in three, was still fresh.  For some in the media – and among the national team’s support - this meant open season on manager Bobby Robson who was labelled as unpatriotic for lining up a job overseas once his England contract came to an end. 

Yet this was a minor distraction.  Much more significant was the fear of hooligans running riot which had seen the cancellation of some games earmarked by the FA as pre-tournament friendlies, thanks also to government authorities that always thought the worst of football fans. 

It was also this fear that led the World Cup organisers to the decision that all of England’s group games would be played in Sardinia.  The memories of the running battles at the European championships held in Italy a decade earlier and those from Heysel coloured local attitudes towards English supporters.  If they couldn’t force them out of the tournament – and there were some attempts at this – trapping England on an island was seen as the best way to control the damage.  With one airport and no overland route, this was seen as the best solution to filter who was allowed to enter the country and police them once there.  Not to mention that the higher costs to get there could probably act as a deterrent as well.

For the English team itself, this did not matter much.  If anything, it was an advantage as it not only saved them from having to travel to different cities but also allowed them the luxury of getting to know the stadium in which they were playing.

In fact, England had arrived on the island as early as May.  To gain some match fitness, a friendly against Cagliari was organised behind closed doors.  Freshly promoted to the Serie A and led by another man who would eventually become an icon in England – Claudio Ranieri – Cagliari were well up for the challenge.  Perhaps too much; those who were there talk of a bruising encounter that was at times anything but friendly.

Robson’s team then flew to Tunisia where they played out a 1-1 draw against the local national team, a game where Abdelhamid Hergal scored a spectacular goal and England only managed to salvage a draw in the last minute through Steve Bull.  Despite Robson’s calls for people not to “read too much into it. This was just a limbering up game. The matches that matter will be played in Italy,” it added to the air of negativity around England’s prospects.

Eager to ease a bit the pressure whilst improving the English’s reputation with the local, Bobby Robson sought to arrange one final friendly match.  The man tasked with setting it all up was Stefano Arrica, who had been assigned to support the English team by the organising committee and who had bonded with Robson whilst playing golf.

Arrica, part of Sardinian football nobility – his father Angelo had been the general manager that pieced together the Cagliari side which won the Serie A title in 1970 – initially thought that a matchup with the oldest football team on the island – SEF Torres – might be ideal for the occasion but then demurred, afraid that this might be too tempting of a target for the much feared ‘hooligans’ as the Italians seemed to consider all English fans.

Instead, they decided to piece together a local representative putting together the best players that the island could offer.  This largely meant amateur players with experiences limited to the Italian lower leagues; only six could boast professional status.

The star among these was undoubtedly Gianfranco Zola.  Although, in this case, the star billing only came from a comparison with his team-mates on the day rather than his achievements.  Zola would eventually become widely recognised as one of the finest players on the planet, yet his rise to the top was not straightforward.  Despite Cagliari’s success in 1970, Sardinian football was not really considered by the rest of Italy; few went there looking for talent.  Even on the island itself, there were those who felt that Zola was too small and frail to make an impact. 

Indeed, despite ten goals in twenty-seven appearances spread over two seasons, his time at Nuorese was overshadowed with doubts over his physicality.  It was only towards the end of his time there and, in particular, when he moved to Torres that those misgivings began to fade.

A lot of the credit for that breakthrough goes to Giovanni Maria Mele, known in Sardinia as Zomeddu, who first came across Zola at his local village team of Corassi di Oliena before finding him again when he took over at Nuorese.

Instead of telling Zola that football was not for him, as some others had done, he arranged for him to go training with Italian weightlifting champion Nardino Masu.  It was an inspired idea that allowed Zola to build more muscle and the physical presence needed to withstand challenges.  Zola was clearly inspired and took it a step further, training also in judo to help him learn how to better cushion his falls.

It all came together at Torres where Zola started to really impose himself and led the side to promotion to the Serie C1 in his first season with them.  For a time Torres could even claim of being the island’s top team seeing that they were even doing better than Cagliari who had fallen from their heights to the Serie C.

His performances there finally caught the attention of Luciano Moggi who identified in Zola a possible replacement for the increasingly erratic Diego Maradona and made the move to sign the Sardinian talent for Napoli.  No one in Naples was thinking of moving the Argentine on but having someone like Zola was a good insurance policy.

It was why in the summer of 1989 Zola finally made it to the Serie A, five years after he had made his first senior appearance.

It would still be some time, however, before he could get to nail a place among the starting line-up.  That was why, despite being twenty-four in 1990, rather than playing in Italia 90 he ended up facing England in a pre-tournament friendly alongside a mix of lower-league pros and amateurs.

Tellingly the man chosen to lead the Sardinian team was Mariano Dessi, a renown coach locally but virtually unheard of away from the island.  Passionate about football from an early age, Dessi had managed to build a career as a coach despite never having played the game at senior level.  His footballing ideology had been shaped by a dinner with Heriberto Herrera, the league winning coach with Juventus.

Heriberto is not to be confused with his namesake Helenio, the legendary Inter manager who popularised catenaccio.  Indeed, Heriberto’s philosophy went counter to that idea, being an enthusiastic proponent of total football.  It was an idea that impressed Dessi who integrated the philosophy in his football wherever he went coaching across Sardinia.  “I have always played rotational football. Football based on movement, in other words," he professed.

That was also why he wanted Zola playing against England; the quality of the opponent was forcing him to adopt a more pragmatic approach yet he still wanted to have some attacking vigour.  For all of Dessi’s tactical tinkering, there was a gulf in class and no one expected anything other than a defeat.  Still professional pride had to be protected as well; no one wanted a humiliation.

Wary of a repeat of what had happened against Cagliari, Robson had asked Arrica to tell the locals to take it easy. “But actually, it was the English who were pounding like blacksmiths!” Arrica later recalled.

"Yes, indeed, they were hitting hard," comes the confirmation from Francesco Marroccu, currently a sporting director but at the time a workhorse with local side Iglesias and one of the pros in the local side. "But the truth is that from a physical standpoint, there was an abyss. Seeing those statuesque physiques was, in a certain sense, beautiful and impressive."

“Zola was the only one among us who could hold his own at that level,” Maroccu continues.  “Our plan was simply: give the ball to Gianfranco and hope we don’t concede fifty.  Because it truly was a siege.”

The game was played out in front of a sell-out crowd of 3,000 largely local fans who packed the tiny Campo Tharros in Oristano.  This being also an attempt by the English team to win over the locals, all the money collected from ticket sales went towards local charities.

There was also charity on the football pitch.  When the game kicked off, McMahon picked up the ball and ran towards his own goal before rifling a shot past an immobile Davide Seaman.  It was a good-will gesture to ease any fears that the local amateurs might have had for their pride.

Still, the gulf in class was huge.  England ran out easy winners hitting ten past the amateurs; hat-tricks by Neil Webb and Peter Beardsley, two goals by Steve Bull and one each for David Platt and Steve McMahon.  Towards the end, Alessandro Tomasso pulled another goal back for the hosts, beating Seaman directly from a free kick.  As for Zola, there were a couple of moves that highlighted his talent and sent the watching fans – that included his parents – into raptures of delight.

Interestingly, one of the players who most impressed the Sardinians was the English defender Terry Butcher. 

"Never in my entire career have I seen a player of that build," recalls Roberto Ennas, an experienced striker who had been Zola’s partner up front at Torres. "At one point, I tried to outrun him along the wing and managed to beat him in speed. He caught up to me in a second and executed a perfectly clean sliding tackle, but so powerful that the ball slammed against the fence and bounced into the air, reaching the midfield. Impressive."

"Majestic, frightening," echoes Marroccu when he recalls the defender.

Later on that summer Paul Gascoigne would become the undoubted star of England’s World Cup but on this occasion Robson kept him on the sidelines all throughout the ninety minutes.  Not that it stopped him from making a mark. 

"Robson kept him on the bench, and he gifted the spectators in the stands 90 minutes of a show," recalls Walter Tolu, the then captain of Torres with whom he had secured safety in the Serie C1 two days prior. "He was on the bench, and every time I passed in front of him, he shouted 'Rambo-Rambo' at me, surely because of my long, curly hair."

"But the even more amusing thing was something else: a few years later, when I was playing for Fidelis Andria, I encountered him before a Coppa Italia match against Lazio. As we were waiting to go out on to the pitch, he recognized me and started yelling all sorts of things at me. My teammates were astonished, I was doubled over in laughter."

Tolu is not the only one with fond memories of Gascoigne; Arrica also has plenty of tales particularly of the times when the young midfielder would sneak out of the hotel.  "I used to go out with someone from the staff," he recounts, "and we'd search for Gazza. We'd find him in some beach bar, drinking. 'Come on, Paul, stop giving us a headache,' I'd tell him in English. 'Just five more minutes,' he'd reply. It was never easy getting him back to the hotel. Meanwhile, he had befriended the bartender and bonded with everyone in the bar. He was never quarrelsome. He was a very tender guy with a big heart, but completely crazy.”

Arrica would bring him back to the retreat, but then he'd sometimes run off again. “He was a handful; when he drank, he slurred incomprehensible words. Even with his Newcastle accent, I struggled to understand him. No, convincing him was never easy.”

“Still, Gazza cared a lot about the national team and performing well in those weeks."

That he did and with him England, going on to enjoy their best World Cup in decades; a success which served as a launch pad for the rebirth of English football.  Their friendly in Oristano became a forgotten footnote for all but the Sardinians who played in it and, for one Gianfranco Zola, provide a glimpse of the future.

Despite the lack of good football, still fondly remember Italia 90, so much that I wrote a book about it. Echoes of an Italian Summer from Pitch Publishing examines Italia 90 from a fresh angle, unearthing an array of stories from this iconic World Cup. If you enjoyed this piece, then you’ll probably love Echoes of an Italian Summer as well.

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Holding On To A Dream

As final results started to filter in from elsewhere, the Livorno players on the substitutes’ bench began to celebrate.  Their season, which up to a month earlier seemed geared toward an inglorious return to the Serie C, had been salvaged by a magical final few weeks during which they had put together an unbeaten run of four games.  That this, their final game of the 2018-19 season away at already relegated Padova, was ebbing away to a disappointing 1-1 draw mattered very little.

On the opposing bench, Matteo Centurioni - Padova’s third coach of the season - knew that the game was over.  There was, however, one more thing that he could achieve that season.  Turning to his bench, he summoned over a young midfielder he himself had promoted to the first team on his appointment. 

It was the ninety-third minute when Cherif Karamoko came on.  His game lasted only a few seconds during which he barely managed a touch.  And yet, it was still the greatest moment of his life, the fulfilment of a dream to make it as a professional footballer.

A dream to which he had held to even when his life resembled a nightmare.

Karamoko was born in Guinea-Bissau in May of 2020 and grew up in Nzerekore, the country’s second largest city, one that lives in constant tension between the three main ethnic groups of the Kpelle, Konianke and Malinke.  In July of 2013, those tensions boiled over and at least fifty four people died during three days of ethno-religious fighting.

Among them was Karamoko’s father.

“My father was the Imam of our neighbourhood and one evening members from another ethnic group attacked our house,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport.  “They would throw fire bombs at houses and when those living there ran out they would hack them with knives and guns.  My father and brother called the police and tried to defend the house as best they could.” 

“In the resulting gun-fight, I saw my father fall to the ground.  He died three days later in hospital.” 

“In the meantime, my brother escaped the country because he was afraid of possible reprisals.”

Two years later, his mother died of Ebola.  For Karamoko, barely fifteen but traumatised by those two tragedies, there was no option apart moving in with his only remaining relative in the city.  His sister took him in but it was an uneasy relationship; whilst she wanted him to go to school, all that he wanted was play football.

The game had always been his sanctuary.  As a three year old he had told his mother that one day he would be on television and as he grew he played at every opportunity on pitches of red dirt, either barefoot or with plastic shoes that he would mend by melting holes together.  But for all his enthusiasm, his sister was right, there was no future for him in the game.  There were no clubs that he could join, much less academies that might nurture his talent or coaches that could guide him.

His brother had resurfaced around the time of their mother’s death.  They found out that he had gone to work in Libya and he’d begun sending some money back home.  Still, whilst he was aware that the situation in Libya was deteriorating, he knew that there was no future for his brother in Guinea.  And so, one day, he sent word for Cherif to join him.

During 2020, as the world struggled to contain the COVID pandemic, just over ninety five thousand individuals took the perilous decision to cross the Mediterranean Sea to try and get into Europe. 

To do so, they put their lives in the hands of criminals who think very little of leaving them stranded in rickety boats without any fuel, food or water. If all went well for them, the current would take them into European territorial waters to get picked up by the coast guards and start the months- long struggle to obtain refugee status.

Those were the lucky ones.  Over eleven thousand were thwarted by the Libyan coast guards during 2020, picked up before they got to reach Europe.  All that awaited these unfortunate individuals were the deplorable conditions of Libyan detention centres.

Others simply disappear.  Last year, there were three hundred and eighty one confirmed deaths and a further five hundred ninety seven instances of individuals reported missing at sea.  In truth, the figure is probably much higher.

Karamoko’s brother had sent a friend to accompany Cherif but even so the journey from Guinea to Libya was a harsh one.  Often Cherif would ask to go back but he would always receive the same reply: Go back where?

Eventually, he was reunited with his brother, although not before being imprisoned on his arrival in Libya.  His brother had to pay for his release just as he had paid for their journey to Europe.

That final part of the journey filled Cherif with anxiety.  He had heard stories of people drowning as they were trying to cross the Mediterranean and didn’t want to suffer the same fate.  His worst fears were soon to be confirmed.  “The boat could hold sixty people but we were one hundred forty three,” he later recalled on the Italian TV show Verissimo.  “It was full, we wouldn’t fit but those who organised the trip were armed and they forced us on.  There wasn’t room to move.”

“It was December, the sea was rough, the weather bad and the boat had a hole...A fight broke out also because of the box holding the life jackets.  Before leaving they had given it to us closed, telling us that there were enough for everyone.  Instead there were only five.”

“That fight definitely led to the boat capsizing...My brother managed to get me a life jacket.  I was crying, confused, not thinking neither about life nor death.  But he kept repeating ‘you have to be strong, you have to live, you have to become a footballer.’”

“We stayed there from nine till the afternoon.  Then, finally, a rescue ship found us.”

He would only find out the terrible reality a couple of days later.  Of those who had been with him on the boat, only twenty-three had been saved.  The rest had drowned: Cherif’s brother had been among them.

Football gave Karamoko some respite from these devastating losses. The first months in Italy hadn’t been easy but as he began to learn the language the situation improved, especially after being transferred to a refugee centre in Battaglia Terme, near Padova.

There was always a dream that pushed him on.  Rumours about his abilities started to spread.  There were talks with local amateur side USD Albano but eventually someone managed to get him a training session with Padova’s youth team.  What was supposed to be a one-off became an extended trial.  The kid, they realised, had skill and strength: but he had never played an official match, nor did he have any concept of tactics.  He did not even know where his best position on the pitch was.  Yet he had the faith of youth coach Matteo Centurioni who spent hours with him, helping him improve his awareness and trying him in different positions until it was decided that the right hand side of midfield was the one where he could make most impact.

When Centurioni was called to take over the first team, he took Karamoko with him.  The elder members of his squad welcomed him, some even gifting him shoes with which to train and play.  Until the final game of the season when his dream of playing edged a step closer.

“When they told me I was in the matchday squad [for the season’s final game], I returned home and cried with joy”, he recounts in the biography ‘Salvati Tu Che Hai Un Sogno’ [Save Yourself You Who Have a Dream] written together with Gazzetta dello Sport writer Giulio Di Feo “I was observing Ramadan, I played only a minute but I’ll never forget it.”

If this were a fairy tale, that is where Karamoko’s story would end.  But, sadly, it is not.  Following Padova’s relegation, he was sent on a season long loan to Serie D side Adriese 1906 where injuries limited his appearances.

In the meantime, the contract with Padova came to an end whilst his residency permit also expired.  He now finds himself once again living in a guest house that hosts around thirty youths like him.  He still harbours the hope of becoming a professional footballer once again.  Mario Centurioni, the man who gave him his debut, remains in touch but he too is out of a job and, so, unable to help.

Even so, as brief as his career has been, football has temporarily given him a measure of hope.  There are countless others making the journey to Europe who, lacking Cherif’s sporting talent, have not been so lucky.

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