Gianluca Vialli

Gianluca Vialli (9 July 1964 – 6 January 2023) was an Italian football player and manager who played as a striker.

Vialli started his club career at his hometown club Cremonese in 1980, where he made 105 league appearances and scored 23 goals.

Vialli's senior career started in 1980 when he signed for local club Cremonese in Serie C1, winning promotion to Serie B.

After scoring ten goals for the club as a winger in the 1983–84 Serie B season, he was transferred to Sampdoria.

His performances impressed Sampdoria who signed him in 1984, and with whom he scored 85 league goals, won three Italian cups, Serie A and the European Cup Winners Cup.

Vialli played for Sampdoria between 1984 and 1992, during which time the club had their most successful period in their history.

At Sampdoria he formed a prolific strike partnership with teammate and friend Roberto Mancini, earning the nickname 'The Goal Twins' (in Italian I Gemelli del Gol).

Vialli also had a very good relationship with club president Paolo Mantovani and coach Vujadin Boškov, who were both described by Vialli as being father figures.

Sampdoria won their first ever Italian Cup in 1985 with Vialli scoring in the final, and would win it again in 1988 and 1989, when Vialli would score a record 13 goals in the tournament.

At international level, Vialli represented the Italy national team in two FIFA World Cups, in 1986 and (on home soil) in 1990.

He also took part at UEFA Euro 1988, helping his nation to a semi-final finish, and was elected to the team of the tournament.

During his twenty-year-long career as a professional footballer he scored 259 goals at club level, 16 goals with the national team, and 11 goals with the Italy national under-21 football team, for a total of 286 goals in more than 500 appearances, making him the tenth-highest scoring Italian player in all competitions.

On his retirement from playing, Vialli went into management and later punditry, and worked as a commentator for Sky Italia.

This led to two notable European Cup Winners' Cup runs, where Sampdoria lost the 1989 final before winning the trophy in 1990, Vialli scoring both goals in the final.

The club won their first ever Serie A championship in the 1990–91 season, in which Vialli was league top scorer with 19 goals – celebrating many of his goals with a backflip, including one against Inter Milan.

The following season, Sampdoria reached the European Cup final, but Vialli would miss a number of chances as Johan Cruyff's FC Barcelona won 1–0.

This would be his last game with Sampdoria.

In 1992, Vialli transferred to Juventus for a world record £12.5 million.

During his time at the Turin club he won the Italian Cup, Serie A, Italian Supercup, UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup.

Vialli moved to Juventus shortly after the 1992 European Cup final loss for a world record fee of £12.5 million.

His first Juventus contract was negotiated for him by Sampdoria president Mantovani, as Vialli did not have an agent.

Although he struggled with injury, Vialli won the UEFA Cup in his first season with Juventus playing alongside players such as Roberto Baggio, Pierluigi Casiraghi, Paolo Di Canio and Andreas Möller, among other players, under manager Giovanni Trapattoni.

Following the arrival of manager Marcello Lippi, Vialli underwent an intense fitness and muscle strengthening training regime to lose weight, and gain speed, agility, physical strength, and stamina.

Vialli refound his goalscoring form throughout the season, and through his leadership and decisive performances, he helped Juventus win the Scudetto (his second overall) and the Italian Cup in 1995, scoring 16 goals during the season; the club also narrowly missed out on a treble after suffering a defeat in the 1995 UEFA Cup Final to Parma, despite Vialli scoring a spectacular second leg goal.

In 1996 Vialli joined Chelsea and became their player-manager the following season.

In England he won the FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup and UEFA Super Cup.

He is one of nine footballers to have won the three main European club competitions, and the only forward to have done so; he is also the only player in European footballing history to hold both winners and runners-up medals in all three mainstream UEFA club competitions, including two winners medals for the now-defunct UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

The closest to him is Dennis Bergkamp, who is missing a winners medal from the UEFA Champions League from the set (and holds two UEFA Cup winners medals).

In January 1996, with his contract expiring in summer, Vialli decided to leave Juventus at the end of the season.

He would finish his final season with Juventus by captaining the side to a Supercoppa Italiana victory and a Champions League final win over defending champions AFC Ajax, playing alongside Del Piero and Fabrizio Ravanelli.

During his four seasons with the club he totalled 102 appearances, scoring 38 goals.

Vialli joined Chelsea in the summer of 1996 on a free transfer as part of manager Ruud Gullit's rebuilding of the side, despite having been strongly linked with Scottish champions Rangers.

Vialli adapted quickly to life in London due to his grasp of the English language and use of English idioms.

The team won the FA Cup in Vialli's first season, with the Italian scoring two goals in a 4–2 comeback over Liverpool in the fourth round.

However, a feud with Gullit saw him regularly left out of the starting line-up; in the final itself he was limited to a five-minute appearance as a late substitute.

During the 1997–98 season, Vialli scored four goals in a league win over Barnsley and a hat-trick against Norwegian side Tromsø in the Cup Winners' Cup, but still could not cement his place in the side under Gullit.

However, following Gullit's dismissal in early 1998, Vialli assumed the role of a player-manager, winning the Cup Winners' Cup in 1998, and the League Cup.

Although he left himself out of the squad for the League Cup final, Vialli finished the season as Chelsea's top scorer.

He then began his first full season as player-manager with a 1–0 victory over Champions League winners Real Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup.

He was part of the Italy national team non-playing staff as a delegation chief when they won UEFA Euro 2020; he stepped back from this role days before his death from cancer.