More Than a World Cup Hero

The Remarkable Story of Totò Schillaci

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.

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