Onnis, the striker snubbed by Italy who scored more than Platini in France

Starting from Ciociaria to get to write the history of French football. Growing up in Argentina, but remaining forever and only Italian: “I’ve never had another passport”. The passport yes, but the national team never, despite the 299 goals scored in his career in the current Ligue1. No one has made more: “There were monsters like Riva and Rivera, there was no room for me even though I would have loved it”.

Delius Onnis he moved with his family in 1950 to Argentina from Giuliano di Roma, a small town in the province of Frosinone with just over 2,000 souls. He was just two years old. “I have no memories of my Italian life”. Yet her language understands and chews it, though it may not be as fluent as Spanish. “The Argentines treated the Spanish and the Italians very derogatorily. We were the ‘starving’, the Spaniards the ‘rough and ignorant’. That’s what they called us, it was a very difficult period for immigrants. After all we really were, veterans of the war and with various problems, that’s why we left. In Argentina people lived very well, now everything has changed, the shit is here now”. Yes, because despite the lackluster welcome, Onnis today still spends a lot of time in the country where he grew up and has begun to build his future, making himself known as “El Tano”, the Italian who scored many goals in the youth academy Almagro, neighborhood of Buenos Aires, and then in the Gimnasia La Plata.

However, his life is spent almost entirely in Montecarlo, where his fame as a footballer precedes him. It was Stade Reims who brought him to France in 1971: a two-year preparatory period for his transfer to the Principality. There he played for seven years, feeling the shame of relegation, but also winning a championship, a French Cup and establishing himself as one of the two best strikers of the decade. The other is a future acquaintance of Italian football, albeit in a different guise, Carlos Bianchi. The titles of top scorer for a decade, from 1974 to 1984, were divided equally, five each: “It was a healthy rivalry, I played with him at Reims for six months, then I went to Monaco. In those years in France there was also a certain Platini and everyone asked him why he had never been top scorer despite being so strong and he answered smiling: ‘Eh well… there are those two monsters of Onnis and Bianchi, I can’t be ‘, and went away from France without ever winning the top scorer’.

In Serie A, however, he succeeded three times in a row. That Serie A that never gave Onnis a chance: “In my day there were no prosecutors, they contacted you directly and nobody ever did with me. Once, however, Helenio Herrera had come to see me play in Corsica, in Bastia. Unfortunately that night the lights went out in the stadium and the game was suspended. From that day on, I never had the chance to play in Italy.” In short, the spark never struck despite the goals and a citizenship that during the period of closure of the borders, with the ban on the purchase of foreign players, would have allowed him to arrive, indeed, return to Italy without problems and to be able to aspire to the shirt blue, the only one possible for him: “Having always and only had an Italian passport, not even Argentina could call me up”.

The prejudice of playing in a league that was still far from footballing excellence at the time may have weighed: “Since the second half of the seventies the level has risen a lot in France with the explosion of the various Platini, who made up the backbone of the 1986 European champion team. I played against all of them”. After Monaco, with Tours and Toulon: each time he gave in with the feeling that the decline was evident, before managing to win the title of top scorer again with every shirt worn. He became “Monsieur 300 buts”, even if ironically he wanted the count of his goals in Ligue1 to stop in 1986 at 299, a figure still sufficient not to worry about potential aspirants to the throne of him, Mbappé allowing.

In France he found football fame that Italy and Argentina have never recognized, but not only: “I’ve been in France since ’71, my children are French and we live in Montecarlo. I hoped Argentina-France in the World Cup final, but in the end they were very angry. We consoled ourselves with the fact that Messi deserved this triumph.” Yet Delio Onnis still retains gratitude for that country that he has never lived in and has ignored it professionally: “Of course I feel Italian, they are my roots and they are never forgotten. But that doesn’t stop me from being both Argentinian and French and Monegasque, I’m not ashamed to say it. I then returned to both Frosinone and Rome, where many of my family members are”. He hasn’t forgotten his origins at all: “In my heart I support Frosinone, the place where I was born. I saw that in Serie B they are first with a lot of advantage, like Napoli in Serie A. I hope they can make it up the ladder”.