Calcio Quotes

“Some players are so bad they are hated. Some players are so bad they are forgotten. And some are so bad that they are loved, talked about, treasured.”
― John Foot, Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer

“Nor did Baggio endear himself to the Juventus faithful by his loyalty to Fiorentina. In the Fiorentina-Juve match in April 1991, Juve won a penalty. Baggio refused to take it, and it was missed. He was then substituted, and on his way to the bench picked up and put on a Fiorentina scarf. Weeks of argument followed.”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“As with all Torino stories, there was to be a final, weird, twist to this tale. In 2000 Torino appointed a new president. He was a life-long Torino fan and had worked as a spokesman for FIAT. His name? Attilio Romero. The same Attilio ‘Tilli’ Romero who had run over his idol – Gigi Meroni – in 1967. The club was now run by a man who had killed one of its most famous players, albeit by accident. This bizarre fact did not pass without comment. Some fans, unhappy at the performance of the team, took to shouting ‘murderer’ at Romero.”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“The Lawyer went down to the dressing room before a match, only to catch Platini puffing on a cigarette. ‘That worries me,’ Agnelli said to Platini. Instantly, a riposte came back. ‘You only need to worry if he starts smoking,’ said Platini, pointing at Massimo Bonini, the tireless midfield ball-winner in that Juventus team.”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“This is a unique scandal in Italian football history - with Juventus as the victims of an injustice.”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“We don't know how to insult you any more' (Inter fan banner, directed at their own team)”
― John Foot, Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer

“Cagliari central defender Comunardo Niccolai became celebrated for his ability to score bizarre own goals in the 1960s, so much that self inflicted problems in general are often referred to as 'Niccolai-like'.”
― John Foot, Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer

“Rinaldo Barlassina, one of the most prominent italian referees at the time, was the victim of stone throwing during a match at Casale. After refusing to give a penalty, Barlassina used an umbrella to protect himself and he emerged unhurt. Ghirelli comments that 'it is unclear if this was thanks to his stoicism or to the fact that the stones had run out'.”
― John Foot, Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer

“Northern journalist Gianni Brera played on the contradiction between Diego's physical appearance and his grace on the field, dubbing him 'the divine abortion”
― john foot, Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer

“Crea spazi vuoti. Nel calcio come nella vita, nella pittura, nella musica, i vuoti e i silenzi sono importanti come i pieni. (Helenio Herrera)”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“(su Gianni Rivera) Ma se non si correva per Gianni, per chi valeva la pena farlo?”
― John Foot, Calcio. 1898-2010. Storia dello sport che ha fatto l'Italia

“Milan-Roma games were especially tense. Roma fans loved to sing, to the tune of Il sole mio – ‘I have only one dream/Milan in flames’. Milan’s fans replied with irony: ‘Milan in flames? And where will you work?”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“Johan Cruyff, although he never played in Italy, had an enormous impact on the Italian game. Ajax’s three European Cup victories in the 1970s revealed a new type of football to the world – ‘total football’ – based on movement, flexibility and a swift, short-passing game. As David Winner has written, ‘total football was built on a new theory of flexible space’. In attack, teams ‘aimed to make the pitch as large as possible’, in defence, they collapsed space.20 This was supposedly the complete opposite of catenaccio, which was based around rigid man-marking, discipline and a mixture of long passing and counter-attacks.”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

“In more than one hundred years of football history, in a country where scandals have been the norm, not the exception, the number of cases involving referees could be counted on the fingers of one hand. This had not helped their reputation. Venduto! – crook – was still the most common insult hurled at the men and women in black every Sunday afternoon.”
― John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football