A fitting tribute to a great footballer and a man of rare personal qualities. Pitch 3 of the Giulio Onesti Olympic Preparation Centre was named after Gianluca Vialli this morning. The ceremony, organised on the occasion of the meeting of the national team, of which Vialli was one of the leading lights between 1985 and 1992 – making 59 appearances and scoring 16 goals – was attended by CONI President Giovanni Malagò, the President of the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio Gabriele Gravina, the National team coach Roberto Mancini and captain Leonardo Bonucci. Also present, among others, were CONI Secretary General Carlo Mornati, Deputy Vice President Silvia Salis and IOC Honorary Member Franco Carraro.
Vialli, who passed away in his fifties earlier this year, trained on the pitch named after him many times, first as a player for the National Under-21 team and then with the senior national team. As delegation chief he supported the Azzurri’s preparation ahead of its victory under coach Mancini at the most recent European Championships in 2021.
Vialli’s career, as one of the greatest strikers of the 1980s/1990s, was also studded with successes at club level, winning all three major UEFA competitions. In 1984 he made his Serie A debut with Sampdoria, winning the Coppa Italia, followed by the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1990 and the Scudetto in 1991. In 1992 he moved to Juventus where he remained until 1996, winning the UEFA Cup,
Scudetto, Coppa Italia, Italian Super Cup and the Champions League. In 1996 he moved to Chelsea where he was also player-manager, then sat on the bench at Watford.
Vialli is also linked to the Olympic world: On 26 February 2006, Vialli, along with other illustrious champions, carried the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, the only footballer to have had such an honour.
“I wish to thank President Gravina, Roberto Mancini and the entire Federation for this opportunity,” said Malagò. “When we met at the Board a few months ago to discuss the idea of naming the pitch after Vialli, we did not make an emotional choice. CONI wanted to send out a strong message that I think we have delivered very strongly today. We are in the Olympic Preparation Centre, named after our predecessor Giulio Onesti, a gentleman who was sent by the government after the war with the idea of closing CONI. Within a few years, he had transformed himself from liquidator to President with great foresight because he realised that, although there had been political contamination during the period of Fascism, CONI was all about sport, athletes were winning and it was already a leading organisation at international level. The pinnacle was to bring the Olympics to Rome in 1960: the city also benefited from it in terms of sports facilities and this place bears witness to that. Today this field is named after Vialli, but this is the field of all Italian sportsmen and more than ever of the FIGC.”
“Thanks to the CONI President because this is an important moment, especially in wishing to send a tangible message by remembering how much Gianluca meant to the world of football and sport in general,” FIGC President Gravina underlined. “Vialli clearly demonstrated that when you do something with love, with passion, when you turn one of the hardest trials of your life into a time when you set an example, you become a hero. Gianluca was a great professional, a great athlete, a man of great value who gave a message of hope to so many young people who have experienced suffering. We stand shoulder to shoulder with him: he is still with us and will be forever.”
The ceremony to name Pitch 3 after Gianluca Vialli was followed by a training session for Roberto Mancini’s national team which was attended by around 30 young patients from the “Bambino Gesù” Children's Hospital, with whom the FIGC and the national team in particular, have been promoting a series of joint initiatives for many years.
“Gianluca was a great footballer and, above all, a great man,” recalled Mancini. “Only two years ago we were focused on the European Championship, he was going through a difficult time but fully supported us: for this I thank Gravina. They were two wonderful years, and I thank CONI and President Malagò for today’s initiative. Luca has left us physically but he will always remain with us.”
“I remember Gianluca in his greatness in his small gestures,” Bonucci added. “Many times, during the national team meeting, his first thought was to give a moment of joy and happiness to the young athletes who are here with us today. Gianluca wanted to make it clear that what he was going through could be erased with a simple gesture. Today we take forward what he left us. A football pitch is not enough to understand the greatness that Vialli had in giving himself, in giving before receiving; each of us remembers him as a great man and even today he is here with us – he’s probably having a laugh, as he often did at our gatherings. During the European Championship and also afterwards he was an example, a driving force.”
“It is an honour to be here. Luca did so much as a footballer but he also did so much as a man, he left us such a wonderful legacy that it is now up to us to continue. The pitch can’t express how much he did, but it is a great example for future generations who will play in this facility,” concluded Riccardo Vialli, Gianluca’s nephew.
(Photo Di Tondo - CONI)
