Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Extended Clip - R.I.P Gianluca Vialli: A Tribute To Sampdoria, Juventus & Chelsea Legend
1.1k Plays3 years ago
Carlo Garganese and Nima Tavallaey pay tribute to and remember Sampdoria, Juventus and Chelsea legend Gianluca Vialli who tragically passed away last Thursday.
This is an extended clip from this weeks free Monday episode of The Italian Football Podcast which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google podcasts.
To listen to ALL complete episodes of The Italian Football Podcast, go to Patreon.com/TIFP and become a Patron for only $2.99 USD per month (excluding VAT).
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Italian football podcast.
Tribute to Gianluca Vialli
00:00:05
Speaker
I want to do a tribute to Gianluca Vialli, who sadly passed away on Friday at the age of 58. Very, very sad. Five year battle with pancreatic cancer, horrible cancer. It's one of those that, yeah, we know with pancreatic cancer, it's a very difficult one to treat.
00:00:29
Speaker
We're going to remember today a truly special human being and just a legendary footballer. So this is a tribute to Luca.
Vialli's Personality and Character
00:00:41
Speaker
First of all, I want to remember Vialli the human. So I want to talk about him as a person first before we talk about him as a footballer. And what a special human being he was. He really was. He was very kind.
00:00:59
Speaker
Um, he, uh, I mean, he, you know, usually when this, the thing we do as people, don't we, this notion that, you know, when someone dies, we try to, we almost, you know, we remember them in somewhat dishonest light. Oh, he was so fantastic in this and that, but with reality, he was genuinely very kind.
00:01:18
Speaker
He truly was a very good person. He was very thoughtful and nice. Anyone who's ever met him will attest to this.
Personal Anecdotes about Vialli
00:01:26
Speaker
I've not met a single person who's had a single bad thing to say about him, not a single person. Not just a bad thing to say about him. Only good things. Everybody had a story about Vialli being nice to them, about how he went out of his way to help people. All the stories of the teammates,
00:01:46
Speaker
people that work with him, down from teammates to just the tea lady and the kit man and how we treated everyone with such respect. I think I tweeted one out on Friday, a personal story of mine, how two years ago, before the Euros actually, I tried to set up an interview with Viali on the Italian Football Podcast and I contacted Viali's agent
00:02:14
Speaker
and i said i would like to do an interview is it possible please and then you know she she she called me and one day and she goes i you know you free right now we got a moment i said yeah i'm available because i'm just gonna i'm just gonna put you through and and i was like.
00:02:30
Speaker
I wasn't sure what she meant. The next thing I know, it was Gianluca Vialli on the phone, and he was like, Ciao Carlo, how are you? And I was like, oh, wow. I wasn't expecting to speak to you. And he was just like, oh, nice. I just think it's better to speak to people in person. And how are you? How's everything? How's life? It was really nice to ask me how my career was, how my family was. We'd never met before. We didn't know each other personally.
00:02:59
Speaker
I don't even know if he knew who I was. He probably didn't even know who I was. He wanted to speak to me. And the reason why he wanted to speak to me is he wanted to tell me in person that he couldn't do the interview. Instead of just leaving it to his agent and the agent saying to me, I know Genelecra's not available, Genelecra can't do it, or as often happens, anybody that's ever tried to get interviews often, you don't even get a reply. Most of the time, I would say that 70% or 80% of the requests you make,
00:03:27
Speaker
you don't even get a reply from the person you ask, whether it's you ask them directly or whether you go through an agency or an agent, you won't even get a reply. Jan Luca went out of his way to call back a stranger just to tell them
00:03:43
Speaker
to tell them directly, I can't do the interview. And he said, the way that he said it at the time was he said, at the moment, I'm not doing any interviews, I just don't feel, I don't feel up to it at the moment. Those were the words that he used. And when he said that, I kind of, the first thing I thought in my mind was I was a little bit worried because at the time he was cancer free. He had cancer originally, I think it was in 2017. Then he got the all clear, I think maybe 2019-ish maybe.
00:04:13
Speaker
Or 2020 and then this was kind of I think beginning of 2021 some point in 2012 And
Vialli's Charity Work and Background
00:04:18
Speaker
when I heard that I kind of I mean, I don't know when he got really diagnosed But at the time I remember thinking ah, you know, I was really I was really worried I thought really I really hope it hasn't come back or you know, maybe it hasn't maybe he just you know He just wasn't feeling wet that well cuz you know He has he has suffered a lot in these last five years But I just thought and I said to him straight away the first thing I said to him as soon as I said that you know What Jen Luka I have more respect for you
00:04:41
Speaker
Doing this then then if you would have accepted to do the interview because for him to tell me directly
00:04:48
Speaker
he couldn't do the interview. I just thought that is the most respectful thing that I think anybody's ever done in the media industry. And he was saying no to me. And I just thought, wow, just amazing that. And so many people have got little, I mean, that's only a little story, but so many people have got stories like that about Jan Luca, about, you know, how he, how he helped people and just what kind hearted person he was. And that's why, I mean, I've shed a tear for him when he died because I just, you know, he's just, he was just such a lovely person. Really was.
00:05:17
Speaker
He really, really was. He really, really was. He did a lot for charity, raising money for research into ALS.
00:05:28
Speaker
Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a really horrible disease. It's affected a lot of sports people. I mean, it's a degenerative disease that affects the motor neurons. We've seen a lot of sportsmen that have suffered from this after their career. There's definitely something that's going on during their career, I think, that's causing this. And Stefano Bourgonovo,
00:05:48
Speaker
The former Fiorentina players, probably the most famous example, played alongside Bad Joe. Vialli raised an incredible amount of money into this. And then later went with the cancer as well. And just this whole human story was really fascinating because he came from a really rich family. I don't know how many people know this, but he grew up in a 30-room mansion in a multimillionaire family. Yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
he was so determined to, he didn't need to work a day in his life, yet he was so determined, had so much determination to make it as a footballer, but to do it on an equal level with everyone else. He didn't have anyone open indoors for him. He made his own way and he treated everyone with respect. And what you can often get with people that come from upper-class backgrounds or middle-class backgrounds or even lower-middle-class backgrounds is that there is that kind of,
00:06:44
Speaker
They haven't lived in the real world. Even if it's not deliberate, there can be that kind of...
00:06:52
Speaker
the working class people or the ordinary people were just almost beneath them. Vialli treated everyone with respect.
Vialli's Humor and Football Legacy
00:06:59
Speaker
He was always smiling. You know, there's some great stories. Graham Suness told some fantastic stories about them, practical jokes. He was a bit of a practical joker, Vialli. Some of the jokes that he played on Suness, Suness pushed him into a lake before a game and Vialli to get his,
00:07:21
Speaker
to get revenge on Sunnis. He did various things during the spell. He sprayed shaving foam into Sunnis' shoes. He cut the legs off Sunnis' Armani suits, which cost a lot of money. There's a great story about how Bialy put Parmesan cheese into the handkerchief of Arrigo Saki when he was Italy coach. And then Saki then put the handkerchief into his top pocket and ruined his suit. I like to ruin his face.
00:07:50
Speaker
that actually played a role in Vialy being dropped by Vialy because those two didn't actually get on and he didn't go to Italian 90 and didn't play again after that. So he was just a great person to be around, just a perfect person to have as your friend and be around, isn't it, that brings joy
00:08:06
Speaker
laughter, but also kindness, you know, he was such a very empathetic person. And I mean, that's the perfect person, isn't it? That's what you want from a person, isn't it? You've got everything, you've got all sides of it, we've got all sides of it that you want from a person. And obviously, the human role that he played in Italy winning the Euros, you can see why he played such an important role in Italy winning the Euros, because he brought all of that to the table, as well as that image of him and Mancini crying in each other's arms, given how close they were childhood friends who
00:08:36
Speaker
grew up together and for them to, you know, Mancini was a synonymous to Vialli's career as Vialli was to his and to see them kind of come full circle and win the Euros together and the fact that, you know, Vialli coming up, turning up late to Italy's first group stage game, which they won convincingly and then after that,
00:08:56
Speaker
Italians being superstitious. That's something they had to do. Everyone had to go on the bus and wait for Vialli to come running on before they left. I love also the scene of him with the water bottle when he turned his bat to superstition. Yeah, and the speeches, the books, the quotes that he read to the team ahead of the
00:09:19
Speaker
That one great story, wasn't it, that you read out? I mean, wow. No, he was he was he was truly a great, great person. And I can't help but to think, of course, of his family, immediate family and friends. But also, above all, I do want to send a thought to Roberto Mancini, who in the space of a few weeks, has lost two of his closest friends in football in Sini Semyalovic and Jallukovic. He's two closest friends. They were his two friends, his two best friends in football.