Italian football legend Gianluca Vialli has passed on following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
The 58-year-old died at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London after battling the disease for a second time.
Vialli had been suffering from pancreatic cancer for months after initially overcoming the illness in 2018. In April 2020, he revealed that he had been given the all-clear for the disease.
However, in December 2021, reports suggested the illness resurfaced with his family members travelling to the UK to be with him.
Vialli made his debut for Italy in a friendly match against Poland in 1985 and was part of the Azzurri’s squad that participated in the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.
The versatile forward won the bronze medal at the 1990 World Cup on home soil, finishing his international career with 16 goals from 59 appearances.
Vialli’s club career spanned 19 years, including spells with Italian sides Cremonese and Sampdoria, where he scored 141 goals in 327 appearances.
The eight years he spent with Sampdoria were the best in the club’s history; forming a devastating strike partnership with teammate and best friend Roberto Mancini, and they were both dubbed “The Goal Twins”.
He ended the 1990-91 season as the league’s top scorer with 19 goals, and Sampdoria won their first and only ever Serie A title. They went on to win one UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup, where he bagged both goals in the final to finish as the tournament’s top scorer.
Vialli set the record for most goals in a single Coppa Italia season and won three separate Italian Cups with La Samp. They also won the Supercoppa Italiana in 1991 and were runners-up in the European Cup final a season later, losing 1-0 to Barcelona.
He played for Italian club Juventus from 1992 to 1996, but it was his three years with English Premier League club Chelsea that many fans remember fondly.
In 1996, he moved to Chelsea on a free transfer from the Old Ladies and scored 21 goals before taking over as a player-coach in 1998. He retired from professional football at the end of the 1999 season to focus on being the Blues’ manager, full-time.
The former Sampdoria striker became the first Italian to manage in the Premier League. During his time at Stamford Bridge, Vialli won the prestigious FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, UEFA Super Cup, and FA Charity Shield within two years.
He then had a stint at Watford before moving into non-management roles, including his role as the delegation chief for the Italian men’s national team, which he held until last December, stepping down to focus on his fight with cancer.
