Gigi Riva, shy and faithful champion with a lightning left foot

The debut in Serie C with Legnano

Things start to turn around. Legnano, in addition to a small apartment and a railway pass, gives him 37,000 lire a month. No big deal, but for Gigi it’s a lot of stuff. It is above all the feeling of having turned. Of no longer having to alternate work with football, first in an elevator factory and then as an auto mechanic. In 1963, on March 13, he made his debut at the Olimpico with the junior national team against Spain. And here his fate is decided again.

The (definitive) arrival at Cagliari

That left-handed man with a strong shot like a stone is liked by Arrica, the general manager of Cagliari. In the interval, before Gigi scored to make it 3-2, the deal was concluded for 37 million and a handshake. At the end of the game, Bologna also came forward with 50 million. Too late, the fate of Riva is inexorably linked to that of Sardinia.

“I didn’t want to go there,” Gigi later confessed. “It seemed to me like a new deportation. I actually accepted to escape an unbearably unhappy youth.’ This is the dawn of Gigi Riva, also known as “Giggirriva” and “Rombo di Tuono”, as Maestro Gianni Brera will nickname him in one of his striking definitions.

Speaking of Riva, 247 goals in 441 games, other myths inevitably cross paths, including those of sports journalism, illustrious colleagues who have had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with that striker with an easy left foot and a difficult word. Let’s say that with Riva, trust is something that must be earned on the field. In the shortlist, in addition to Sandro Ciotti and Maurizio Barendson, a young Gianni Mura also appears (“scrupulous reporter, certainly not one of those who eavesdrop then throw it at you by surprise”, the first to interview Gigi when he broke his leg with Portugal and who, years later, would call him “Hombre Vertical”, to pay homage not only to the champion but also to the man who has always remained consistent with his principles).

The link with Sardinia

Riva comes from afar. Like those rivers which, thin at their mouths, become majestic along the way. There are three turning points in his life as a bomber. The first, decisive, partnership with Cagliari, which will lead, in addition to the unforgettable championship of 1969-70, also to settle forever his bond with Sardinia. A mutual bond because the Sardinians, as Brera writes, “saw in him the champion, the chosen one who had to redeem them in the face of a stepmother story”. That Scudetto, conquered with an extraordinary group (Albertosi, Niccolai, Brugnera, Cera, Domenghini, Bobo Gori, Nenè…) who deserve a much wider space, is a national event that transcends football, because it was obtained against the arrogant football powers of the North. That Sardinia, of which Gigi becomes the symbol, was a profoundly poor, isolated, humiliated region. That scudetto, snatched with nails and the goals of his striker, is worth a thousand awards, a thousand investment plans, a thousand trade union marches. The last who become first, after having fought against an entire continent that called them “shepherds”.