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More Vialli love from BTL, and particularly how he was resonant of a vivid period in the game. Here’s FrederickFleet:
For me growing up in Ireland in the late 80s, the first exposure to non English football I got was the weekly Italian football show (with James Richardson?). The Sampdoria team that Vialli was part of still resonates – Pagliuca, GV, Mancini, Lombardo, Viechowod(?) among others. Always had a soft spot for him since then. Apart from Maradona and the worldie Milan team of Baresi, Maldini, etc I can barely remember any other players from the era. Yeah when I see a clip of play from that time my mind will be jogged and some names will be familiar. But that Sampdoria team still resonates for some reason. (From the 1990 WC onward there was a huge increase in football exposure both internationally and foreign club football which kinda diluted the novelty.)
Indeed, and for viewers in the UK, Vialli was intrinsically bound up with memories of Channel 4’s Football Italia Sunday afternoon live games in the early 90s. For those of us who didn’t have satellite dishes at the time and didn’t support a Premier League team, having a weekly footballing diet combining third-tier football on a Saturday followed by the unreachably glamorous Serie A on a Sunday felt like a fine waste of a weekend.
Marco Silva returns to Hull with his in-form Fulham side tomorrow, having spent five months managing the Tigers in the top flight in 2017, when they were eventually relegated. “I arrived during a tough moment but the fans were special for us,” said Silva.
“No one believed in us, but the way we improved the players in that moment was really good and it will be special to go back.”
Silva reported no fresh injury concerns before the FA Cup tie, but Shane Duffy is ruled out through illness. “We are in a really busy period which is tough,” Silva said. “We have to assess players and decide for tomorrow’s match.”
Fulham remain open to adding some fresh faces during the January window, but only if the right calibre of player becomes available.
“All the focus is in our players and our squad, and we know the positions that we should strengthen as well,” Silva said.
Back to Chelsea’s present, and our tactics guru Jonathan Wilson has been mulling over their and Graham Potter’s problems, and why the manager needs to be given time, for the sake of aspiring coaches in general as well as the club in particular:
It may be that the issue is not Potter but Chelsea. And the question lurking always just out of reach is that if Potter isn’t given time to work this out, if he is rejected before he has had a chance to rationalise the squad and learn about this different level, how can any coach ever come through the British game and make it to the top?
Some more Vialli tributes:
RIP Gianluca Vialli. What a lovely lovely man and a wonderful player he was.🙏🏻
— Alan Shearer (@alanshearer) January 6, 2023
Newcastle “are not here to be popular”, Eddie Howe has said, which is probably just as well given their club’s dramatically shifted public image since the Saudi Arabia takeover.
Speaking before the Toon’s trip to Sheffield Wednesday for their third round FA Cup tie and in the wake of their spiky 0-0 draw at Arsenal, Howe said: “We are not here to be popular and to get other teams to like us. We are here to compete and to compete, we have to give everything to try and get a positive result.
“Depending on how the game is going and where the momentum is in the game, you have to be streetwise and smart and find a way to get a positive result for your team, and certainly I think that’s been a really good aspect of our play this year.
“I have to be very strong at certain moments for my team, for the club. I’ve got no problem doing that as long as I don’t lose my discipline and control. But certainly I have to stand up for what I believe in in certain moments.”
Newcastle could have their record signing Alexander Isak available for the tie at Hillsborough, but will again be without Matt Targett, Emil Krafth and Jonjo Shelvey.
Gianluca Vialli will be associated with many things – winning trophies for Juventus, Chelsea’s emergence as a modern force, the new cosmopolitanism of English football in the 1990s, his relatively unusual upper middle-class background – but arguably the most noteworthy of all is his role in Sampdoria’s only Serie A title, as Rob Smyth recalled a few years back.
It was a gloriously improbable triumph dripping with enough charm and romance to melt the hardest heart; as incongruous as a love story in a gangster movie, only in a good way. They were the feelgood hit of the spring.
Darlington have vowed to ban any fan found guilty of misogynist abuse of a female official during Monday’s National League North win at Scarborough, PA Media reports
Referee Dean Watson stopped play briefly during the first half of the Quakers’ 5-2 victory at the Flamingo Land Stadium after assistant Emily Carney was allegedly targeted by visiting fans, and the game was suspended for almost 40 minutes after the break following a further incident involving home supporters.
A club statement said: “Darlington FC strongly condemns any sort of discriminatory behaviour at our matches, both at home and away.
“We will not tolerate or condone racist, misogynist, sexist or any other form of discriminatory behaviour whether physical or verbal. The club will work to ensure that such behaviour is met with appropriate action in whatever context it occurs …
“Incidents like the one on Monday at Scarborough, which detracted from a great win on the field, do not help the great reputation which we have painstakingly built as a fan-owned club over the last 11 years.
“We are carrying out an investigation into the disgraceful abuse that was aimed at the assistant referee at Scarborough last Monday, and if individuals are found to have abused the assistant, then those individuals will be banned from watching Darlington FC matches and may be subject to further external action.”
Juventus have issued a moving statement about the loss of their former star striker, Gianluca Vialli:
Gianluca
Such an intense sense of loss.
We had been watching the news for days, hoping never to read this.
But here we are, staring at the screen, and a flood of emotions crashes inside of us.
We have always been with you, Gianluca. Ever since you arrived in 1992, when it was love at first sight. You were one of the first pieces of a Juve side that would have climbed back to the top of Europe. We loved everything about you, absolutely everything – your smile, your being a star and leader at the same time, on the pitch and in the dressing room, your adorable swashbuckling ways, your culture, your class, which you showed until the last day in the black and white stripes.
While Sampdoria have tweeted their own tribute:
And here’s a pictorial celebration of his life:
Fancy some transfer rumours? You’re gonna get them anyway, what with it being January. Will Magee sifts through the best and most speculative of them in today’s Rumour Mill. Frenkie de Jong, once again, features.
The Wrexham manager, Phil Parkinson, is full of beans ahead of the National League high-fliers’ trip to Coventry, reports PA Media.
“Obviously Coventry offer a very different challenge to what Farnborough [their second-round opponents] did,” he said. “The out of possession stuff is going to be really important because you’ve got to respect Coventry are going to have a lot of the ball, like we did against Farnborough.
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got nice distance while out of possession, but equally I said to the lads when we win it back we’ve got to look to play ourselves. We’ve got the players capable of passing the ball, getting control of games and that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing us do.
“We’re not just going there to hang in there, we’re going there to play, we’ll work hard to obviously make it difficult and restrict space when Coventry have got the ball.
“The FA Cup is the competition when I was growing up, was probably the biggest weekend in the football calendar at the time and everyone looked forward to the FA Cup.
“That stays with you, I still feel it’s got its magic, I really do, there’s always a different feel to FA Cup games and we go there like I say with nothing to lose at all. We’ll play with a real freedom and enjoy the day.”
And of course there’ll be more Hollywood-owner hoopla should Parkinson’s side cause an upset.
“These lads have played under or lived with quite a lot of expectation for a while,” said Parkinson of the attention afforded the club since Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney took over. “We’ve always got the TV camera at live games, we’ve had loads of them – I’ve lost count the number of times we’ve been on TV this year.”
Some reaction BTL, and I like this from Glozboy:
Just learned about Vialli’s death. I was 12 when he signed for Chelsea and had a season ticket with my Dad so it was a real privilege to see the team develop over the years he was there. What a player, and a very decent manager as well. I remember at an early press conference he was asked how his English was progressing, to which he responded “It’s getting better, but when I talk to Dennis (Wise) I understand nothing”.
Legend. Rest in Peace.
So let’s have a look at some choice Vialli goals. I first remember noticing him at Euro 88, where he was the best player in an Italy side who looked good enough to reach the final but were undone by the USSR in the semis. He was also a mainstay in the similarly classy side that reached the last four and again should have gone further at Italia 90.
Chesterfield v West Brom is another of the weekend’s Cup ties to look out for – two in-form sides off the pitch, in the National League and Championship respectively, in contrasting situations off it: the Spireites revived under community trust ownership, the Baggies mired in financial murk, debt and supporter discontent.
Ben Fisher’s been chatting to Chesterfield’s assistant manager Danny Webb, whose family is well embedded in Cup lore:
Some reaction to Vialli’s death. Chelsea tweeted Chelsea “You’ll be missed by so many. A legend to us and to all of football. Rest in peace, Gianluca Vialli,” while owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali added: “This is truly an awful day for Chelsea Football Club. Gianluca’s legend will live on at Stamford Bridge. His impact as a player, a coach and most importantly as a person, will be forever written across our club’s history. We send our heartfelt and deepest condolences to his family and friends.”
Graeme Souness described him as “a gorgeous soul, fabulous to be around, a fun-loving guy, a warm individual and a fabulous player. What a human being.”
And here’s a lovely interview with him by Donald McRae in 2020, where he talks about coping with cancer:
Football mourns death of Gianluca Vialli
The former Italy striker Gianluca Vialli has died at the age of 58 having suffered from pancreatic cancer. He was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2017 and announced he had been given the all-clear in 2020 after treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London but the illness returned in December 2021.
Vialli began his career at Cremonese before starring for Sampdoria and Juventus, and ended his playing career at Chelsea before going into management and coaching. He scored 16 goals in 59 appearances for Italy and featured in the Azzurri’s 1986 and 1990 World Cup squads.
Preamble
Morning everyone, and we must start with the very sad news of Gianluca Vialli’s passing. A class act as a player, manager and human being, and mourning for his loss will not be confined to Juventus, Chelsea and Sampdoria. We’ll bring reaction and comment throughout the day.
Elsewhere, it’s – still, despite everything – one of the most distinctive and anticipated weekends of the season: it’s FA Cup third round time. And beyond the now-traditional clashes of big clubs’ not-quite-first-choice XIs (yer Man City v Chelseas, yer Man Ud v Evertons), other treats await us with their own intriguing subplots – Coventry v Wrexham leaps off the page here, given the rollercoaster rides both clubs have been on in the past couple of decades. So let’s start with 10 things to look out for:
