Toto Schillaci and the 1990 World Cup: this story is a modern football fairytale. The famous striker has now died at the age of just 59.
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- Former Italian international Toto Schillaci is dead.
- Schillaci succumbed to the consequences of cancer in a hospital in Palermo.
- Born in Sicily, he was one of the defining figures at the 1990 World Cup in his home country. With six goals, he was the top scorer of the entire tournament.
Italy mourns the loss of one of its most popular football heroes. Salvatore "Toto" Schillaci, top scorer at the exhilarating 1990 home World Cup, has died of bowel cancer at the age of just 59. "Ciao Toto. Hero of magical nights," wrote the Italian FA on social media. Big words for a big story.
Because Toto Schillaci and the 1990 World Cup in Italy - that was a modern football fairytale. Even if the title was ultimately won by the German team and not the hosts and their hitherto largely unknown goalscorer.
As a substitute at the World Cup
The fairytale began at least a year earlier, when Juventus Turin, the country's most popular and successful club, was looking for a replacement striker and brought in the then 24-year-old Schillaci from second division club Messina. He doesn't cost much. He doesn't complain even when he's just sitting on the bench. That was the idea behind the transfer - and this calculation was repeated a year later at the World Cup.
Because even then, coach Azeglio Vicini was really only looking for a loyal addition who he could substitute for the big stars Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Baggio or the future national coach Roberto Mancini in an emergency. But just as unexpectedly as Schillaci had shot Juventus to cup and UEFA Cup victory in his first first league season, he also became the big star of the World Cup.
"Signor Nessuno" (Mr. Nobody) scored as a joker in the 1-0 win against Austria, scored against Czechoslovakia (2-0), against Uruguay (2-0), against Ireland (1-0), in the semi-final against Argentina (4-5 on penalties) and in the third-place match against England (2-1).
The fans - and not just the Italian ones - loved everything about him this summer: his story, his passionate goal celebrations, his tears after the defeat to Argentina. After the tournament, the top scorer was also voted the best player of the World Cup: ahead of Germany's World Cup captain Lothar Matthäus and Argentina's football god Diego Maradona.
Second career in politics and jungle camp
"Suddenly, even the people who didn't like me couldn't say anything," Schillaci later said about the summer and the tournament of his life. And this sentence also says a lot about what "Toto" experienced before and after this World Cup.
Having grown up in a poor district of Palermo, the Sicilian first dropped out of school and then an apprenticeship with a tire dealer. And from the 1990/91 season onwards, Schillaci hardly scored at all, first for Juventus and then for Inter Milan. Even when he became the first Italian professional to move to Japan in 1994, he only had one good season.
"He was the meteor that shone for a summer and then fizzled out in the football galaxies between Turin, Milan and Tokyo," the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" once wrote in its book on the 1990 World Cup.
After his career, Schillaci appeared in the Italian version of the TV jungle camp and was elected to the Palermo city council. It is interesting to note that the former Inter and Juventus striker stood for "Forza Italia", the party of long-time AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi.
"Have a good trip, campione"
How much "Toto" and his World Cup fairy tale meant to people can be heard in every tribute on the day of his death. "Bon voyage, campione", wrote Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. "An icon of football has left us, a man who had entered the hearts of Italians."
And Schillaci's former club Juventus wrote in his obituary: "We immediately fell in love with Toto. His will, his story, his passionate nature; you saw all of that in every one of his games. From now on, we'll be watching his 36 wonderful goal celebrations with a lump in our throats."