Roberto Baggio the best Italian player ever and arguably the best footballer of all time. I started this thread in nostalgia but also because I hope to see in my lifetime another Italian get to his level. I'll start with his best ever season: Here is a video of goal I challenge anyone to equal. Meaning, IMO I don't think any of the greats in history ever have scored a goal like this one. If you know of one please post it here. Pelle, Maradonna, Zidane never scored a goal equal to it. To my knowledge at least. Even strikers like Ronaldo (Brazilian) did not. But please if you can prove me wrong and post it here...
I'm a Milanista but a huge Totti fan. Even you can't argue that Totti has the best vision ever. Probably even better than Baggio that attribute wise
Roberto Baggio, as far as Italian soccer players are concerned and at least since 1980 onward, was the best ever. Its just a shame what Sacchi, Ulivieri , Capello and Lippi (twice) did to him. He never deserved the treatment from any of them. It made little sense at the time and even less now.
I have no doubt in my mind that if Roberto actually had healthy, functioning knees, he would be renowned by everyone alike as the greatest attacker of all time. The things that man could do with a ball despite his knees failing on so many occasions was obscene.
Roberto Baggio, born 18 February 1967 in Caldogno (Italy). 452 games and 205 goals in Serie A (6th all-time), playing as second striker with Fiorentina, Juventus, Milan, Bologna, Internazionale and Brescia. Widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time (4th in the FIFA internet poll), Baggio won both the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year in 1993. He is the only Italian player ever to score in three World Cups[4] and holds the record for most goals (9) scored in World Cup tournaments for Italy, along with Paolo Rossi and Christian Vieri. He is also one of the top 5 all-time goalscorers for the Italian National Team and is one of the 3 top-scoring Italians in all competitions. Baggio is known as "Il Divin' Codino" ("The Divine Ponytail"), for the hairstyle he wore for most of his career, for his talent and for his Buddhist background. At the international level, Baggio has earned a runners-up and a third place medal at the 1994 and 1990 World Cups respectively, being awarded the Silver Ball and the Silver Boot in 1994. He has won 2 Serie A, 1 Coppa Italia and 1 UEFA Cup.
Baggio: The People's Champion@phat @falvo While Italian football is so often dominated by petty partisanship, Roberto Baggio rose above the fray. Susy Campanale of football Italia, salutes the Divine Ponytail on his 50th birthday. The one good thing about getting old is that you can brag about seeing the greats in their heyday. Ah you young whippersnappers won’t fully grasp what it was like to see a star at his peak. It’s more than brief fuzzy YouTube clips or those new-fangled gifs they’ve got nowadays. Roberto Baggio was poetry in motion. Baggio – somewhat appropriately for a Buddhist – transcended Italian football’s petty partisanship. I genuinely cannot think of another player who so united all fans in the Peninsula, no matter their club allegiance. He wore the shirts of bitter rivals, Juventus and Fiorentina, Inter and Milan, but nobody ever held it against him. How many others can genuinely say their sale sparked rioting in the streets? This was no ordinary passion that Baggio invoked in people. He formed an emotional bond with Fiorentina that could not be broken even when he joined their fiercest rivals, Juventus. He endeared himself forever to them by refusing to take a penalty against the Viola, showing there was still some purple blood coursing through his heart even under that hated black and white jersey. It pains me to think that so many people around the world remember Baggio only for his haircut or that missed spot-kick in the 1994 World Cup Final. There’s your YouTube generation again, seeing only clips of days gone by and thinking they know everything about a player because they’ve got Football Manager running in the background. They forget Baggio dragged Italy kicking and screaming to that Final after a disastrous start. That Arrigo Sacchi visibly didn’t want to play him, but someone of such talent simply could not be ignored and shoved his way into the line-up anyway. His injury in the semi-final and having to play the 120-minute Final in scorching heat on essentially one leg before stepping up for that penalty – all cut out of that tidy clip. In terms of pure, raw talent, I’m not sure Italy has ever had anyone to match Baggio, nor will we see his like again. It’s amazing to think that he achieved all of this with crippling injuries, one of which nearly ended his career before it began at Vicenza. What could he have been without those problems? Spoken in the same breath as Diego Armando Maradona and Pele, no doubt. Baggio was an artist of the ball, someone who could enact a move before anyone else had even thought to consider it yet. His running style always reminded me of a ballet dancer, tip-toeing past defenders with his feet barely seeming to touch the ground. He was also born in the wrong era. In the 1990s, Sacchi and his protégés were effectively cancelling the trequartista from the calcio lexicon, wanting only those who ran hard and followed precise tactical patterns. Baggio needed the freedom to express himself, to dance around the field to his own symphony. Carlo Ancelotti famously told Parma not to sign him when a deal had already been done – something the Coach now at Bayern Munich admits was a massive mistake – but that’s how so many Coaches saw him at the time, as an inconvenient rebel. The people love nothing more than a rebel, of course, and that endeared him to us even more. Baggio could not be tamed, he had to run free and we’d relish every moment of his dance. He had to go where he’d be allowed to express himself, at small clubs like Bologna and Brescia, who still knew how to appreciate artistry. His CV doesn’t look that impressive on paper: a UEFA Cup, two Serie A titles and a Coppa Italia. He won the Ballon d’Or only once, in 1993, and some would have you think this made him less than a legend. Trust those of us who saw him play for the full 90 minutes – he was always that good. Today, Roberto Baggio turns 50. The curls are now white, the ponytail gone, but the glint in those sparkling green eyes remains. Il Divin Codino was the most apt nickname you could find, as watching him play made you feel closer to the Heavens.
He was really something else. The only player I rate at the same level as Baggio is oddly enough the one who provided him with that assist. I think that was a 18 year old Pirlo playing alongside Baggio at Brescia? It's a shame Baggio never won a World Cup.
He deserved that 94 WC. He carried that team. For what it's worth, he's a Messi level talent to me. Just magical.
Brescia will have never stayed in the Serie A for four season had it not been for Baggio. He was the main reason they stayed up. Luca Toni and Andrea Pirlo weren't all that great when Baggio was there and he kept the team strong and competitive. Its no wonder they were relegated the very next year after he retired and haven't been back to the top flight ever since.
my dad was at that Bulgaria game. he said it was wild!!!! unfortunately I don't remember watching that world cup. my first world cup I remember was 1998 and seeing DiBiagio not convert his penalty
This was before my time to remember anything but the next door neighbour recorded all the games on VCR so I watched them growing up. He will grow up to be a smart player! Now up the homework with Totti, Riquelme, Redondo and Ronaldo and you'll have the greatest ever
I must correct you young man. Messi is Baggio level talent. He did carry that '94 WC team. Too bad he played on half a leg in the final in the one of the hottest summers ever at noon in Los Angeles.
I was there. It was warm but because it was in California, it was a dry and not a humid heat. Nothing like the brutal hot and humid days Italy experienced 4 years earlier at Italia 90. The main problem that day was Baggio was hurt and couldn't get anything going. Sacchi approached and asked him if he was ok to play but what could he say? Which player on earth would refuse starting a WC Final? If Roby could walk, he will have played regardless. Maybe Arrigo could have subbed Zola or Signori in but he wasn't going to take out the player who got them there. If Robert Baggio was healthy though, there would be no way Brazil would have won.