For one month in 1990, Schillaci was the most beloved player in Italy, and one of the most famous players in the world.
Azeglio Vicini did not have any particular words of wisdom for Salvatore Schillaci. He did not send him on to the field at the Stadio Olimpico, into the white heat of a home World Cup, weighed down by some complex tactical schema. Vicini was not that sort of coach. His instructions were simple: Entra, e fai gol. Go on, and score.
They would, as it turned out, be the last words anyone said to Salvatore Schillaci before he took the field late in Italy’s opening game at the 1990 World Cup. A few minutes later, the 25-year-old Schillaci had fulfilled Vicini’s request. His header had given Italy the lead against Austria. His celebration, eyes wide with shock and awe as the Stadio Olimpico melted around him, enraptured a nation; he would, from that moment on, only ever be Toto.
Soccer mourns its idols, these days, with unhappy regularity. On Tuesday, Aston Villa wore black armbands to commemorate Gary Shaw, one of the heroes of its glorious European Cup campaign in 1982. A few days earlier, Anfield stood to applaud Ron Yeats, captain of Bill Shankly’s first great Liverpool side. The funeral of Sven-Goran Eriksson, a former England manager, was held in Sweden this month.
This is, obviously, a function of time, of the unfortunate truth that even childhood heroes are not impervious to age. But it is a consequence of fame, too, a measure of soccer’s growth from weekend pastime to global sporting phenomenon. Gigi Riva and Franz Beckenbauer, who both died this year, formed part of the sport’s first generation of truly global icons, names that resonated beyond the bounds of the field.
Schillaci, who died this week from bowel cancer at 59, belongs in that category, too, though he would never have claimed to rank alongside the likes of Beckenbauer as a player. He was, by his own assessment, “useless” in the air. He once described himself as “mangy.”
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