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‘We met at 16 and we never parted’: Roberto Mancini pays emotional tribute to ‘little brother’ Gianluca Vialli following his tragic death from cancer on Friday… as Italy boss references his grief and joy shared at Wembley
- Roberto Mancini paid emotional tribute to Gianluca Vialli after his death
- The former Italy, Juventus and Chelsea striker died of cancer at the age of 58
- He and Mancini had been teammates at Sampdoria since they were very young.
- The two shared the heartbreak of losing the 1992 Champions League final.
- Vialli joined Mancini’s coaching staff for the Euro 2021 triumph
Roberto Mancini has paid an emotional tribute to ‘little brother’ Gianluca Vialli, who passed away on Friday at the age of 58.
Vialli lost his long battle with cancer on Friday, sparking a wave of emotional tributes across the footballing landscape. The former Italy, Juventus and Chelsea striker touched many lives in football, though perhaps none as pertinently as Mancini, also 58.
It had been given the go-ahead in April 2020, but tragically it came back.
Roberto Mancini paid an emotional tribute to his “little brother” Gianluca Vialli, who died at the age of 58
The two were teammates at Sampdoria from a very young age. The club reached its zenith when it reached the Champions League final in 1992, but Barcelona narrowly defeated them: both Mancini and Vialli made the team that day and would avenge their Wembley heartbreak together some 29 years ago. after.
Speech Corriere Dello Sport In the wake of his friend’s tragic passing, Mancini praised his character, revealing that he had visited him just a week earlier, by which time Vialli was “powerless, with little voice” but remained “very lucid”.
At Sampdoria, they were nicknamed ‘the twins in goal’ for their ability at the top of the pitch. Although Vialli left for Juventus shortly after the loss to Barcelona in 1992, they remained close.
Vialli and Mancini were inseparable from a young age, nicknamed the ‘Goal Twins’ in Sampdoria.
Vialli joined Mancini’s Italy coaching staff in 2019 and they enjoyed success together as his team beat England in the Euro 2020 final.
“We met at the age of 16 and we never broke up,” Mancini said. ‘The youth and absolute teams of Italy, the Samp, the ups and downs, the victories and the defeats.
‘Those two nights at Wembley, many years ago we wept with pain and bitterness, and then wept with joy as if we were bound together by fate before he passed away.
‘He played a key role in our winning the European Championship. The players loved it.
“Gianluca gave us a courage that we did not know and that he used to fight his illness with such force that he managed to be with us as long as he could,” added Mancini.
‘Gianluca was the best of us, a perfect and brave man. It was a privilege to be his friend, his teammate in football and in life.’
Vialli’s death comes just weeks after the death of AC Milan and Bologna manager Sinisa Mihajlovic, who died at the age of 53 after being diagnosed with leukemia some three years earlier.
Vialli joined Mancini’s coaching staff in Italy in 2019 and they tasted success together at Wembley
Mancini, who also played with Mihajlovic at Sampdoria, referenced his death in his tribute to Vialli.
“Just a few days after Sinisa’s death, I lost another brother, or little brother, as I liked to call him,” he said.
From his last meeting with Vialli at the end of last year, Mancini revealed what he was talking about and said that he will make an effort to “dedicate something to him”, with which they had been “dreaming all their lives”.
“We talked a little about everything, he even asked me about the December meeting with the young people. He wanted to know the developments of the project.
“With his strength, I will go ahead to dedicate something relevant to him, which we have been dreaming of all our lives.”