“I told my mother, ‘If you love me, then kill me.’”
An allergy to painkillers meant that Roberto Baggio felt every one of the 220 internal stitches to re-attach the ligaments in his right knee – and it looked as though a football career that had barely started was already over.
Baggio was just 18 when he suffered his first serious knee injury. The year was 1985, and he’d recently agreed to join Fiorentina from his local club Vicenza in Serie B, but he was told he’d never play again.
It would be the first but certainly not last time he was written off.
After defying doctors to return to the game within 18 months, he suffered a relapse shortly into his Fiorentina career – the Viola had honoured the agreement to take him to Florence despite the terrible injury – and would undergo another operation.
In his first two seasons at the club he managed only five Serie A appearances.
Whilst critics continued (and would continue) to question the art of Baggio, the player perfected the Art of War.
When he appeared at his most vulnerable, he was usually at his most deadly. When he appeared subdued, we would often pluck a moment of brilliance to decide a game. When it looked as though the light had dimmed, it would return just as brightly as ever before.
If war was a means of attaining tranquillity or freedom for the converted Buddhist, so be it.
Rising star
His knee continued to affect him throughout his career – Baggio would later admit he was not fully fit for more than three or four games a season – but in the two seasons leading up to Italia 90 he was sensational. With Italian Fantasistis at a premium, his arrival provided fulfilment for millions.
Italy’s Catenaccio-inspired World Cup win in 1982 had strengthened a belief that playing with panache and verve was not strictly necessary, with perhaps the dashing forays of Bruno Conti providing the only fantasy in that team.
Foreigners like Platini, Maradona and Zico were providing it domestically, but Italy had not seen one of their own doing it since Gianni Rivera had retired.
The quality and variety of the goals Baggio scored must have been prominent in the thoughts of Azeglio Vicini when deciding to select him for his final World Cup squad.
Whether it was arriving in the box at just the right time, arching shots from distance via live or dead balls, or his speciality of dribbling past opponents whose responses to…
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