MADRID, 22 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Italian Luigi Riva, one of the best forwards of the 60s and 70s and all-time top scorer for his country’s national team, with which he was proclaimed European champion and runner-up in the world, died at the age of 78, according to confirmed this Monday the Italian Football Federation (FIGC).
«Italian football is mourning one of its greatest champions. ‘Gigi’ Riva, alias ‘Rombo di Tuono’, one of the best forwards of all time and the best scorer in the history of the national team with 35 goals, has died at the age of 79,” the federation lamented on its website. where he indicated that in his memory a minute of silence will be kept before the matches of all the championships scheduled from this Tuesday until the weekend.
Riva, one of the myths of Italian football, spent almost his entire career in the ranks of Cagliari, with whom he played 315 games and where he was key to the club’s historic only conquest of the ‘Scudetto’ in the 1969-1970 season. “Forever, Gigi Riva,” the Italian team said goodbye to him on social networks.
The striker was also the first Cagliari player to be international and debuted with the ‘Azzurra’ at just 20 years old and soon began to show his scoring skills that led him to have the record for goals for the national team with 35 in 42 games. , some of them as important as the one he scored in the tiebreaker for the 1968 EURO final against Italy.
Two years later, in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he scored a double in the quarterfinals against the host and then a little more in the memorable 4-3 semi-final victory against the Federal Republic of Germany, although he was then unable to do so in the final. lost to Pelé’s Brazil.
Second classified after his compatriot Gianni Rivera for the 1969 Ballon d’Or, Riva was closely linked to the national team of which he was part of several of its delegations, including the four-time championship won in 2006. In 2011 he became part of the ‘ Italian Football Hall of Fame’.
«I am shocked and deeply saddened. Italian football is in mourning because it has left us a true national monument. Gigi Riva embodied the myth of the free man and the extraordinary footballer: his pride, his class and his sense of justice united generations and fascinated millions of people. The ‘Rombo di Tuono’ linked his extraordinary career as an athlete and coach to the ‘Azzurri’, thanks to him we won EURO 1968 and the 2006 World Cup. Those who, like me, were lucky enough to know him, today lose a friend and a important point of reference,” confessed Gabriele Gravina, president of the FIGC.
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– 2024-05-02 02:41:40
