For the next two weeks, ESPN FC is counting down the 20 greatest World Cup players of all time, with two unveiled per day until the final five. The identity of the No. 1 player will be announced on April 18.
Name: Paolo Rossi
Nationality: Italy
Position: Striker
Clubs: Juventus (1973-75), Como (1975-76), Vicenza (1976-1980), Perugia (1979-80), Juventus (1981-85), AC Milan (1985-86), Hellas Verona (1986-87)
International career: 48 matches, 20 goals
World Cup participation: 1978, 1982, 1986 -- played 14, scored 9
Finest World Cup moment: Golden Boot as Italy won 1982 title
Roll of honour: Winner 1982, Fourth place 1978
The World Cup story of Paolo Rossi is one of redemption and faith being repaid on the grandest footballing stage of all.
Rossi entered the 1982 finals in Spain with a dark cloud over his head; he had only recently returned from a two-year ban imposed for his part in a Serie A match-fixing scandal. Only the faith of coach Enzo Bearzot kept Rossi in the team, when all others said that the striker, rusty and seemingly a stranger to the game, should be dropped. Rossi rewarded his mentor’s patience and was a key part of his country’s first title since 1938.
Rossi’s legend derives from the three matches in which he scored six goals that fired the Azzurri to their title. In Italy, there is now little talk of what went before. His contribution turned a faltering unit into deserved champions; he remains an unblemished Italian national hero to this day.
At the 1978 finals, under Bearzot, Rossi had scored three goals and supplied four assists as Italy finished a highly creditable fourth in Argentina. But in 1980, while a Perugia player, he became embroiled -- possibly inadvertently -- in a fixing scandal. Playing for Perugia against Avellino, he scored twice in a match that finished 2-2. When it emerged that the result had been fixed, Rossi was hit with a three-year ban, though that was later reduced to two. He has always denied his involvement.
During the imposition of his ban, he returned to Juventus, his original club, but by the time Bearzot picked his 22-man squad, Rossi had played just three matches for the Bianconeri at the conclusion of the 1981-82 season.
“I felt he was very eager to prove to the whole world he was not a bad person,” Giuseppe Bergomi, the then-18-year-old full-back who was Rossi’s teammate in 1982, tells ESPN FC. “In fact, he maintained he'd never done anything wrong and all accusations against him were wrong.”
Italy took a gifted squad to Spain in '82, including the talents of Roma winger Bruno Conti, Fiorentina playmaker Giancarlo Antognoni and a core of Juventus players who had helped make their club one of the strongest in Europe. However, Italy started listlessly, drawing their three first-round matches against Poland, Peru and Cameroon.
Rossi was particularly lacklustre. “If you watch the film back now, he is the worst player you have ever seen in your life,” John Foot, author of "Calcio: A History of Italian Football," tells ESPN FC. “He is appalling. He cannot even pass; he’s completely lost it confidence-wise.”
Italy lurched into the second group-stage round with the Italian nation’s press and fans calling for Rossi to be dropped immediately. Yet Bearzot, by now defiantly reducing himself to one-word replies at news conferences, stuck by his man, even after Rossi had again failed to come close to scoring in a 2-1 defeat of troubled holders Argentina.
In Barcelona’s Sarria Stadium, all came together as Italy and Rossi stopped the runaway train that was Brazil, considered by many to be the best team not to reach a final. After scoring in the fifth minute, Rossi immediately returned to his ghost-like best and scored a hat trick of close-range finishes that devastated the favourites. The instincts had returned, and Brazil’s vulnerable back line was destroyed. Rossi's spark lit up the team.
“Rossi was an extraordinary player,” says Foot. “He was a special sort of poacher. He didn’t have a great shot; it was just positioning, and understanding space. None of those goals in Spain saw him burst the net.”
“We all struggled in the group phase, and you could tell Paolo was out of playing rhythm,” says Bergomi. “Then he scored three against Brazil and looked like he would score -- and did -- every time he touched the ball.”
The trick was repeated against Poland in the semifinals, where two goals were enough to take Italy through to the final. There, in Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium, Rossi opened the scoring in a 3-1 win for the Italians, his sixth strike seeing him finish as the tournament’s leading scorer. He would also be awarded the Golden Ball, for the best player at the finals.
“I think 1982 is the World Cup that Italians can agree on together,” adds Foot. “There are problems with the fascist-era ones from the 1930s [Italy won in 1934 and 1938], and 2006 because Italian football was divided by the Calciopoli [match-fixing] scandal. It [1982] has everything, from a more innocent time. It’s just the one that works; there’s a collective memory about it.”
At the centre of it all was Rossi. His previous sins (if in fact he was guilty) have been absolved in the eyes of the Italian public. Few players’ contributions have been so important to a world championship.