It was 1 February 1976, on a cold Sunday at the Sant’Elia in Cagliari, Cagliari-Milan was played. In the 6th minute of the second half, the player in the Rossoblù’s No. 11 shirt runs after the ball towards the flag, stops and screams from the pain in his right leg. It is the moment in which the career of the greatest striker that Italian football has ever had ends: Gigi Riva.
Index
The Beginning
Luigi Riva known as Gigi was born in Leggiuno in the province of Varese on 11/7/1944 from a poor family and since he was a child he had to face great difficulties. At the age of nine, the loss of his father, at seventeen that of his mother. At ten he goes to live in boarding school and at thirteen he goes to work in a factory. He grows up under the guidance of his older sister Fausta who will follow him throughout his life. After so many years in reference to this difficult period he lived he said:
“From football I got everything, but I would gladly give up some of it to correct my childhood.”
From these words we understand the greatness of the character, made up of deep feelings when he remembers his parents and his painful childhood.
In terms of football, he took his first steps in Legnano where at the age of seventeen he arrived to play in Serie C. He was called up to the national team and in a match at the Flaminio stadium in Rome, the vice president of Cagliari, Andrea Arrica, noticed him and convinced his club to buy him for a figure of around thirty-seven million lire. On the transfer to Cagliari who played in Serie B, Riva said: “When I found out about the transfer I was afraid because I had never left the province of Varese and even going to an island also led me to think about not accepting, in the end my coach who accompanied me to Cagliari with my sister Fausta.”.
Successes with Cagliari and in the national team
Arrived in Cagliari in 1963 at the age of 19, Riva’s first thought was to make a good championship in Serie B and after a year return as close to Varese as possible. In that season Cagliari won the championship and arriving in Serie A, he convinced himself that he could stay in Sardinia for a few more years. The Serie A championship begins and Riva scores the first goal of a long series (at the end of his career there will be 156) against Sampdoria at the Amsicora stadium, which will also be the theater where Cagliari will win the Scudetto in 1970.Starting from that championship Riva will score a number of goals that will lead him to be the top scorer in the top flight three times. On the meaning of the goal Riva said:
” Goals make you live the week well, it’s nice when your teammates come and hug you after you’ve scored”
Later he also arrived in the national team where he scored 35 goals in 42 games, a record still unbeaten today, which make him the main goalscorer of all time for the Italian national team. At club level he won the championship 69/70 becoming also top scorer that season. Six players played in that legendary rossoblù team (Albertosi, Cera, Niccolai, Domenghini, Gori and Riva) who were then protagonists at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico City.
The champion Cagliari played with: Albertosi, Martiradonna, Zignoli, Cera, Niccolai, Tomasini, Domenghini, Nenè, Gori, Greatti and Riva. In the national team he won the 1968 European Championship, where he scored in the final against Yugoslavia and was vice world champion in 1970 in Mexico. He finished second in the Ballon d’Or race behind Gianni Rivera in 1969, by just four votes difference.
Heart game
There is a match in Riva’s heart, which has remained etched in his memories and in those of the Cagliari fans and all Sardinians. On 15 March 1970 Juventus-Cagliari was played in Turin, a challenge between the first and second in the standings separated by two points. On a rainy Sunday in front of 60,000 spectators, referee Concetto Lo Bello from Syracuse who, together with Riva, was the absolute protagonist of the match.
In the first half Juventus took the lead with an own goal from Comunardo Niccolai, central defender of the rossoblu, and before the end of the same half Riva equalized with an acrobatic goal, following a corner kick from the right. But it was in the second half that everything happened, with Lo Bello who decided to be the protagonist. Halfway through the time he conceded a penalty kick to Juventus, very dubious contested by Cagliari.
Anastasi kicked the penalty and Albertosi saved it, but Lo Bello intervened and ordered it to be repeated. Haller went to the spot and scored. At that moment all the Cagliari players, taken by desperation, surrounded Lo Bello and Riva said to him: “Tell me what I have to tell you to throw me out” the Syracusan referee replied: “Think about playing”.
The match resumed and 10 minutes from the end, on a free-kick kicked by Cera the ball arrived at Riva, a defender pushed him and Lo Bello awarded the penalty to Cagliari with big protests from the Juventus players, the referee did not want to hear reasons. Riva went to the spot and had the fate of the championship and the history of Cagliari.
Enrico Ameri, great radio commentator of Tutto il calcio minute by minute, described this penalty thus: “Riva starts, Anzolin saves but the ball goes into the net!”. Cagliari fans went from hell to heaven within 3/4 seconds, because that goal meant, 90% of the time, the conquest of the title of Italian champions. After the exultation Riva approached Lo Bello and asked him: “And if I had made a mistake?”, the great Sicilian referee replied: “I would have had it repeated”.
In Riva’s stories this was the most important goal for his history and for that of Cagliari.
Injuries and Goals
In the national team he suffered two very serious injuries. The first at the Prater in Vienna in Austria-Italy, the second at the Olympic stadium in Rome in Italy-Portugal. Also for this reason he is remembered for his great attachment to the blue shirt and in this regard Riva says:
“When you wear the blue shirt it sticks to you so strongly that it becomes a second skin.”
There are many spectacular goals made of strength and technique that make both Cagliari and national team fans remember Riva. In the rossoblù we like to remember three goals: the first in Vicenza-Cagliari in the 1969/70 season, in which he scored with a spectacular bicycle kick, so much so that the great radio commentator Sandro Ciotti said: “Riva arches towards the sky with a bicycle kick and the ball goes into the net.”-
The second in Cagliari-Bari on 12 April 1970, a match that consecrated Cagliari as champions of Italy, where he scored with a diving header on a cross from Brugnera. The third against Inter at San Siro in 1970 with a strong running shot from the left and from which the definition that the journalist Gianni Brera gave him was born: “From the force how Riva hit the ball it seems to hear a thunderclap. “.
In the national team three spectacular goals are to be remembered: the first in Italy-East Germany in Naples with a swan dive from Domenghini’s cross. The second in the final of the 1968 European Championship in Italy-Yugoslavia where he scored the first goal with a strong and precise shot from the edge of the penalty area. The third in the legendary Italy-Germany 4-3 semi-final, where he scored the 3-2 goal with class and power that the great commentator Nando Martellini told it like this:
“Riva controls the ball on the edge of the area, RIVA, RIVA, RIVA SHOOTS THE SHOT AND THE BALL GOES INTO THE NET!”
Total ecstasy for the Italian fans
It should be remembered that in that world championship Riva was considered the star together with Pele.
Attachment to a land
When Riva arrived in Sardinia, he thought he would stay at Cagliari for just one year. But his fate reserved for him to be adopted not only by a city, but by an entire region. Sardinia at that time was certainly not considered a holiday paradise but a barren land of shepherds and isolated from everyone. Instead Riva found in this land a reserved and shy people like him and the ideal environment to enhance his qualities both on and off the pitch. And that’s why he never left Sardinia and Cagliari.
What happened in those seasons in which Riva was the protagonist was emblematic. Under pressure from the lawyer Agnelli, Juventus tried to get him in every way by offering seven of his players to Cagliari in one season in exchange for his arrival in Turin and a huge contract in Riva. Cagliari accepted the offer but Riva refused and later said:
“It didn’t seem right and proper to abandon a land and a people that adopted me, that gave me a home and made me feel like one of the family and for this reason I can’t betray them.”
Juventus could buy everything and everyone with its power through Fiat, except Gigi Riva.
After football
After the competitive activity Riva remained as manager of Cagliari until he became president for a few years. After this adventure he began working as a columnist for Rai and later became team manager of the Italian national team. And even in this position he managed to leave his mark, becoming the point of reference for the Azzurri players for over twenty years in successes and defeats.
How can we forget that it was he who consoled Franco Baresi who was crying on his shoulder after the defeat on penalties against Brazil at the 1994 World Cup. Or how he defended the Juventus players, called up for the national team, on the occasion of the 2006 World Cup after the outbreak of the scandal concerning Juventus itself and other teams.
So much so that the Turin team was relegated to Serie B. Or how he behaved upon returning to Italy after the triumph in Germany in which he ordered the driver of the bus that was carrying the Azzurri towards the center of Rome for the celebrations to let him get off , because he had seen characters around the team who had first criticized the national team and then metaphorically wanted to get on the bandwagon. He didn’t want to mix with these characters and once again demonstrated his personality and outspokenness.
Today
After his activity as team manager, Riva retired to his native Cagliari, surrounded by the affection of his loved ones and by that of a people who venerate and respect him as they did when he played. You can meet him in his daily walk through the streets of the center of Cagliari, always available and kind.
How can the story of a unique and rare character of Italian football like Gigi Riva be defined? He loved a small provincial team to the point of bringing it to the Olympus of Italian football. He loved a blue shirt and considered it a second skin. He loved an island and his people who adopted him.
Everything can be bought but not Gigi Riva, the legendary Thunderclap.
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