Gigi Riva, the best scorer in the history of the Italian football team, died at the age of 79. The 1968 European champion and 1970 world runner-up was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack at the weekend. According to initial reports, his life was not in danger. However, ANSA reported his death this evening.
Riva was taken to a hospital in Cagliari. According to the media, he underwent tests that showed he would have to undergo minor heart surgery. But after a few hours came the news of his death.
“Italian football is mourning because a true national monument has left us. I am shocked and deeply saddened,” said Italian football chief Gabriele Gravina. The federation hastily ordered a minute’s silence before the second half of today’s Super Cup final between Napoli and Inter Milan in Riyadh. Riva’s memory will also be honored by footballers in Italy this weekend.
“I lost a brother,” former Cagliari goalkeeper Enrico Albertosi, who celebrated both major national team successes with Riva, told Sky Sport. “We spent many years together, we slept in the same room. I lost someone very important. Even today we talked on the phone. I didn’t know he had heart problems,” said Albertosi.
“It’s a huge loss, I also lost an excellent friend,” former famous goalkeeper Dino Zoff told ANSA. “Gigi and I have so much in common. We were in the army together, then we won the European Championship in 1968 and continued with the national team until 2000, I was the coach and he was the manager. We had a great relationship, it was impossible not to be friends with him,” he said Zoff.
Riva played 42 matches for the national team and scored 35 goals, which is still the Italian record. One of the best and most popular Italian strikers of all time, he was loyal to Cagliari for almost his entire career. He played for him for 13 seasons from 1963, brought him to the first league and in 1970 helped him to the only title so far. With 156 goals, he is the club’s top scorer. He was its honorary chairman until his death.
He ruled the scorers in the Italian league three times. He finished second in the Golden Ball poll for the best European footballer in 1969 and third a year later.
Between 1988 and 2013, he worked in the implementation team of the Italian national team and was at the triumph at the World Cup in Germany in 2006.
2024-01-22 20:50:04
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