Summary clip of today's events in sports, 1.6 (Sport1)
The most powerful image at Euro 2020, and perhaps one of the most spectacular in the history of all football, was the hug between Roberto Mancini and Gianluca Vialli immediately after Italy's victory over England in the final at Wembley.
The two friends fell into each other's arms and burst into uncontrollable tears - tears of happiness and relief.
They did it, against all odds, closing a circle that had opened almost three decades earlier, in May 1992, at the same venue - even if it was the old Wembley Stadium.
Their Sampdoria lost the Champions Cup final to Barcelona because of that massive Ronald Koeman free-kick deep in extra-time, and Vialli who missed two excellent chances to decide the game in favor of the Italian club sobbed after the final whistle - so it was a cry of immense frustration.
And when looking for the reason why Viali was so revered among many football fans, even those who did not sympathize with his teams, it is likely that these tears satisfy her.
He had an endless and contagious passion for the game.
This love, combined with extraordinary elegance, made him an icon.
Viali symbolized something pure and simple, and broadcast on exactly the right wave.
He himself was a fan on the field, and did the thing he wanted to do.
fell into each other's arms.
Roberto Mancini with Gianluca Vialli (Photo: Reuters)
Came to Sampdoria thanks to Mancini
Unlike most footballers, the game was not for him a means of ensuring financial security.
In terms of money, his future was certain as soon as he was born in July 1964, because his father was very successful as a construction contractor, built a real empire, became very rich on his own, and Gianluca spent his childhood in an ancient and magnificent 60-room palace.
As the youngest child in a family with four older brothers, he was given endless indulgences, and could choose any hobby, any profession and any occupation.
Viali chose football, at the age of 9 he traveled by bus for about an hour each way to participate in the training of a small team in the area, and it was his only dream.
Not everyone at home understood this, but the father, who was an ardent Juventus fan, went along with it.
He saw that his son had considerable talent.
As someone who was almost completely free from financial considerations, Viali made his career choices "according to what his head and heart said" according to his definition.
Thus, for example, he remained in the humble Carmonza, a team from his hometown that he joined when it was in the third division, until he promoted it to the top division in 1984.
He had good offers before, but he preferred to complete the challenging task, and then he actually joined Sampdoria, mainly thanks to his friendship with Mancini, with whom he managed to collaborate in the youth team.
"I admired him", he later testified about his peer.
Viali realized that Mancini was more talented than him in terms of handling the ball and seeing the game, but he really didn't envy him.
A very special chemistry was soon created between the two, and they were one of the best duos Italy has ever known.
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One of the best duos that Italy has known.
Gianluca Vialli with Roberto Mancini in a Sampdoria uniform (Photo: GettyImages)
Berlusconi refused
Therefore, when Sampdoria took their lead to heights they had never reached before, Viali felt that he was part of the family.
And he didn't want to leave this family - he loved the club, and loved playing with Mancini even more.
Therefore, in the summer of 1986, he outright rejected a very tempting offer from Milan.
Silvio Berlusconi and Adriano Galliani began to build an extravagant project and were sure that Viali would be happy to be a part of it, but they were wrong.
The striker is not interested in the money, and from a professional point of view his heart is torn because Sampdoria is better for him.
In his place, the red-blacks went a year later for Marko van Basten.
If Vialli had agreed to move to San Siro, the Dutch trio would not have been created, and all history would have changed.
No one knows what Vialli would have achieved in Milan, but in the test of the result in Sampdoria his heart was right.
He won the cup three times, hoisted the cup holders after scoring twice in the final against Anderlecht, and in 1991 he fulfilled a dream when the charismatic side from Genoa won the championship ahead of Berlusconi's empire.
Vialli was top scorer that season with 19 caps, Mancini added 12, with the prolific attack in the land of the boot it was the best performance.
Arrigo Sacchi ended his term in Milan empty-handed, and a year later - when he was appointed the national coach - he almost immediately eliminated Vialli's career in the blue shirt.
Viali put his picture in his locker in the dressing room and stuck pins in it.
Arigo Saki (Photo: GettyImages)
Saki couldn't stand him because of Parmesan
Today, when the football world mourns the death of Viali at the age of only 58, it is customary to tell clichés about how much everyone loved him.
This, of course, is an invention and an exaggeration.
Vialy was a well-liked character in general, but far from consensus as an actor, and not everyone connected with his sense of humor.
His relationship with Graham Sons, for example, was not perfect at the beginning of his tenure at Sampdoria - the Scot once pushed Vialli into the lake as a kind of joke, and in response the Italian took revenge on him many times with various exploits, including pepper in his underwear, foam in his shoes and pants cut to pieces.
Viali enjoys making fun of people, and with Saki it didn't exactly go as planned.
The striker spilled Parmesan flakes on the coach's napkin during a meal, causing the destruction of a suit, and that was the end of him in the national uniform - at least that's what the legend says.
This final chord was jarring at the age of 28, and since then Viali used to put Saki's picture on his cubicle in the dressing room, stick pins in it and thus increase the motivation before the games.
However, his entire career in the national team was disappointing in relation to potential.
In Euro 88, there were hopes that the Viali-Mancini duo would lead the Blues to victory, and the striker really scored a brilliant goal against Spain in the group stage, but in the semi-finals the friends from Sampdoria were silenced by the Soviet Union and lost 2:0.
In the home World Cup in 1990, Vialli was projected to be the ultimate star on the wing, but disappointed against Austria, missed a penalty against the United States, and cleared the stage for Toto Scilacci who was crowned the tournament's goalscorer.
On the other hand, Vialli did not find the back of the net at all, and commentators claimed that his inclusion in the lineup in the semi-final against Argentina at the expense of Roberto Baggio was wrong and caused the painful relegation.
Italy did not qualify for Euro 92 at all, and Vialli's story ended immediately after with only 16 goals in 59 appearances.
He waved in his last game in a Juventus uniform.
Gianluca Vialli in 1996 (Photo: GettyImages, Bongarts)
The last Juve captain to win the Champions League
It's disappointing, because the ability in his teams' uniforms was much better.
Viali was the terror of defenses thanks to his versatile ability.
He had a tremendous kick with both feet, he was very fast and mobile, knew how to find free spaces even when they tried to guard him personally, and had a tendency to score virtuosic goals - with scissors, with flying kicks, with jump shots, basically in every possible way.
He did it at Sampdoria when he received assists from Mancini and Mattilio Lombardo, and continued at Juventus, where he moved in 1992 a few weeks after the loss to Barca.
When he cried in the dressing room at Wembley, the striker already knew that his career at Sampdoria was over.
He felt exhausted, his heart said it was time for a change of scenery, and the president Paolo Mantovani did not object to accepting an amount that was at that time an all-time record, around £12.5 million. The acclimatization in Turin was not smooth, but the collaboration with Roberto Baggio improved with Time, and in his third season with Marcello Lippi on the lines in 1994/95, Viali scored 22 goals in all competitions, won the championship, and was named the world's player of the year in the World Surveyor magazine poll - a prestigious award in those days. He won the hearts of the fans, received the captain's ribbon , and in 1996 lifted the Champions Trophy that had eluded him four years earlier. To this day, he is the only Old Lady captain to do so. Again, the European final was his last game for the team, as his heart told him to try something completely different and go to Chelsea.
Sensational step.
Gianluca Vialli on the lines as a player-coach (Photo: GettyImages, Clive Mason)
A coach-player at the age of 33
Rod Hulit told him that life in London would suit him - and he was not wrong.
Viali remained to live in the capital of England until his last day, and came to the palace in Italy mainly for vacations.
In the Premier League, he was one of the first major foreign stars, and he had a significant impact on the dramatic change that football underwent in the Kingdom.
It was even more important because, in a sensational move, he was appointed player-manager in place of Hulit at the age of 33, and handed out champagne to the players before the debut game in his new role, in which he started the lineup.
It was an unorthodox experiment that suited the unorthodox nature of Chelsea in the 90s, and it produced decent results.
Viali won the league cup in one of the first games in the double role, and went on to win the holders' cup as well, when he beat Stuttgart 0:1 with a goal by Gianfranco Zola, which he put on the field a few seconds earlier.
Vialy himself was on the pitch for the entire 90 minutes, yet tactically overcame Joachim Lev - and it turned out to be the young German coach's last game on the Stuttgart bench, after which he sank and disappeared from consciousness until he appeared as Jurgen Klinsmann's assistant in 2004.
What would have happened if he had won and continued to lead Stuttgart, gaining momentum in the top clubs in the Bundesliga and never making it to the national team?
You never know, but in those days Viali was considered a real rising star as a manager as well.
Enjoying the carefree life in London, until friend Ancini called (Photo: GettyImages)
A former coach at the age of 38
The thing is that he had trouble finding the right balance with the old stars who continued to see him mainly as a friend and not a coach.
Retiring as a player in 1999 didn't help either, and Vialli was eventually sacked in a controversial decision in September 2000. He believed he could leverage himself, completed coaching courses, got the job at Watford in the lower league, but failed and burned out - then decided it just wasn't for him.
As usual, he only did what his head and heart advised him, and the cessation of work as a coach was complete.
Instead, Vialy concentrated on commentary, writing columns and books, and greatly enjoyed the carefree life in London.
He returned to involvement in the teams only at the end of 2019, when Mancini called him, as a national coach, to be the head of staff in the national team.
This had several purposes.
First, the two longed to return to work together after so many years, in which they maintained their friendship mainly by phone.
Second, Viali was supposed to contribute his experience and personality to the team's players - and it worked, because he definitely had a positive contribution to winning the European Championship.
Third, and probably the most important consideration of all, was Mancini's way of making Vialli relevant and involved while dealing with cancer.
The hope was that this step would have positive health consequences.
At only 58 years old: the legend of the past Gianluca Vialli succumbed to cancer
always with sparkling eyes: Paz Hasdai in a farewell column for Gianluca Vialli
was free of cancer in Euro.
Gianluca Vialli with the trophy (Photo: GettyImages, Claudio Villa)
It was not enough to be president
As of the moment of the appointment, Viali was in the midst of a second treatment against pancreatic cancer.
He was diagnosed in 2017, declared cured in 2018, but the disease returned and struck him again.
Mancini's holy goal may have been achieved, because in 2020 the medical battle was again crowned with success, and the former striker once again returned to an apparently normal life.
When he celebrated so excitingly with his friend at Wembley, he was cancer free.
In an interview he gave at the time, he said: "I have many more plans, so I want to continue living for many more years. When the time comes, after I learn the subject, I want to be the president of a football club. I have no doubt that I will make mistakes, but I have ideas on how to improve The game. Clubs need to be more financially stable, and the fan must be seen as a partner and not as a customer. I want to create a more correct culture, in which the players will be allowed to grow as human beings. Maybe I'm an idealist and a little naive, but I believe in it."
It's a shame we won't see Viali as president.
The cancer that returned for the third time in December 2021 was incurable, and football is crying for the character who left so many memories along the way.
Mancini, who lost his close friend Sinisha Mihailovic less than a month ago, now also said goodbye to the best friend he ever had.
A more brutal scenario is hard to imagine, but the successes he experienced together with Vialy on the grass and during Euro 2020 will be impossible to take away from him.
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