Gianluca Vialli

Gianluca Vialli OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [dʒanˈluːka ˈvjalli]; 9 July 1964 – 5 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. 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.

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. 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.

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

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.

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. This led to two notable European Cup Winners' Cup runs, where Sampdoria lost the 1989 final before winning the trophy in 1990, with Vialli scoring both goals in the final victory over Anderlecht, and finishing the tournament as top-scorer.

Despite losing out to Milan in the 1990 European Super Cup, the club went on to win 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 won the Supercoppa Italiana and reached the European Cup final, but Vialli would miss a number of chances as Johan Cruyff's Barcelona "Dream Team" won 1–0. This would be his last game with Sampdoria.

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. During the 1993 UEFA Cup Final against Borussia Dortmund, Vialli set-up Baggio's decisive first goal in the first leg.