https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/record-italy-goalscorer-gigi-riva-dies-aged-79-2024-01-22/

:-(

How his puny 35 goals are still the all-time record for the Italian NT is one of football's greatest mysteries.

On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 9:36:03 PM UTC+1, Futbolmetrix wrote:
> https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/record-italy-goalscorer-gigi-riva-dies-aged-79-2024-01-22/
>
> :-(

RIP

> How his puny 35 goals are still the all-time record for the Italian NT is one of football's greatest mysteries.

I believe only Maradona in Naples comes close to what Riva has meant to Cagliari and Sardinia.

Ciao,
Werner

Futbolmetrix:

> https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/record-italy-goalscorer-gigi-riva-dies-aged-79-2024-01-22/

Let me quote myself
(https://groups.google.com/g/rec.sport.soccer/c/WYEnX3pv-mE/m/4g28wjn2hvkJ):

Riva was this life-changing. In Catania, my dad and my uncles had a
team in the school league. Their tactics was very basic: as soon as
one picked the ball, he had to deliver a long pass to the only good
player (an uncle of mine) that stationed in the opponents' area and
somewhat managed to score. While this could seem a classical example
of the same catenaccio that the NT used with Riva having my uncle's
role... this is not my point.

As a matter of fact their team had indeed *two* forwards: the other
one being a boy who was basically clueless. But he believed he *was*
Giggiriva (i.e. Gigi Riva!). I.e. he didn't wear their team shirt but
Cagliari's one, he was right-footed but shot with the left foot
because Riva did, and so on.

However, as I said, he was clueless (pro-tip: kicking with your wrong
foot doesn't help) and their tactics was just giving the ball to the
_other_ forward, so the poor Riva-clone (that, contrary to what you
are thinking, was *not* my father!) basically didn't play. But once
they played against the worst team in the league, only seven players
of which bothered to show up at the match, all of them severely sick.
So the milivella ancestors' team easily scored some goals - of course
all scored by my forward uncle - and was ahead. In the second half
they were 6-0 or so, and an imprecise long pass reached not my uncle,
but the Riva clone. He looks around: there's no defender in a 2
kilometer radius (don't ask me how they know it, they just told me so:
maybe they were playing in a particularly isolated field?), and the
goalkeeper is chatting with a girl on the stand. So Riva II stops the
ball (in some versions of the story he even puts it in the right place
with his hands), straightens his Cagliari shirt, takes a run and
shoots with a Riva-signature move:
http://www.repubblica.it/2005/b/sezioni/sport/calcio/rivatrecc/rivatrecc/stor_2387285_57320.jpg
The ball finds the net, and the boy starts running *crazily* across
the pitch screaming "I am Gigi Riva! I am Gigi Riva!" Two complete
laps of the fields are completed with Gigi Riva running ahead and his
whole team behind (again, in some versions they too scream "He is Gigi
Riva! He is Gigi Riva!").

The referee didn't even bothered to resume play, the match ended this
way, 20 minutes short of due time.

On 22/01/2024 21:33, Futbolmetrix wrote:
> https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/record-italy-goalscorer-gigi-riva-dies-aged-79-2024-01-22/
>
> :-(
>
> How his puny 35 goals are still the all-time record for the Italian NT
> is one of football's greatest mysteries.

Since the Reuters article alludes to the 'injuries marring the latter
part of his career', I guess I need to acknowledge that it was a
murderous tackle from behind by Norbert Hof (afterwards called 'il boia
del Prater' by the Italian press) during a Euro qualifier between
Austria and Italy in October 1970 that left tibia and fibula in his left
leg broken in half.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2teFBssPC5U&t=31s

Hof, whose mother was Italian, (and whose brother Erich was the far
better footballer) allegedly sent a telegram to the hospital that said
'Scusi, Gigi', and when Italy and Austria met a year later for the
return fixture, a (mostly) recovered Riva showed his class and made a
point of ostentatiously shaking hands with Hof before kick-off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Hof#/media/File:Italy_v_Austria_(Rome,_1971)_-_Hof_and_Riva.jpg

Hof died three years ago aged 76, and the vintage Italian ice cream
parlour decked out in red, white, and green that Hof's family had run
for decades in Vienna closed for good about five years or so before that.

Ciao,
Werner

Futbolmetrix used his keyboard to write :
> How his puny 35 goals are still the all-time record for the Italian NT is one
> of football's greatest mysteries.

remember world cup 2006 in Germany?

Pirlo
Iaquinta
Gilardino
Materazzi
Inzaghi
Totti
Zambrotta
Toni
Toni (2nd)
Grosso
Del Piero
Materazzi (2nd)

Italy doesn't need a 15-goals-in-tournament player to win a
championship, a good balanced team is enough ;)

Any other team won the cup with its hi-scorer with just two goals?
I remember in Chile 1962 the top scorer had 4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_FIFA_World_Cup#Goalscorers

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On 2024-01-22 13:33, Futbolmetrix wrote:
> https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/record-italy-goalscorer-gigi-riva-dies-aged-79-2024-01-22/
>
> :-(
>
> How his puny 35 goals are still the all-time record for the Italian NT
> is one of football's greatest mysteries.

Goals per game is very respectable at 0.83 . Only 42 caps. Presumably a
lot fewer caps were against weak opposition, too, since there were fewer
games overall, and countries like Andorra, San Marino, Faroes, Malra,
Liechtenstein and so on were not competing internationally.

All of Italy's leading scorers since mid 70s have pretty dismal goals
per game rations - which is probably why their average cap numbers don't
compare all that well to the ones from other countries -a lot of
chopping and changing.

Baggio 0.48
Vieri 0.47
Inzaghi 0.44
Altobelli 0.41
Graziani 0.36
Del Piero 0.30, but with the most caps of this bunch at 91.

Totti had only 58 caps and 9 goals
Rossi only 48 caps and 20 goals (0.417)

Giroud and Henry scored at similar rates to the above, but had a lot
more caps. Mbappe is doing considerably better.
Klose was at 0.52 with way more caps
Muller 1.1, Voller 0.52 (90 caps). Lukaku is at an impressive 0.73 with
113 caps. Kane is at 0.70 Lineker was 0.60, Greaves 0.71, and Shearer 0.48

MH expressed precisely :
> Muller 1.1, Voller 0.52 (90 caps). Lukaku is at an impressive 0.73 with 113
> caps. Kane is at 0.70 Lineker was 0.60, Greaves 0.71, and Shearer 0.48

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_men%27s_footballers_with_50_or_more_international_goals

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On 2024-01-24 00:17, Ammammata wrote:
> MH expressed precisely :
>> Muller 1.1, Voller 0.52 (90 caps).  Lukaku is at an impressive 0.73
>> with 113 caps.  Kane is at 0.70 Lineker was 0.60, Greaves 0.71, and
>> Shearer 0.48
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_men%27s_footballers_with_50_or_more_international_goals
>

A list that kind of supports what I said. Many of the names on this
list come from confederations with lots of unequal matches and a lot of
games, with the players having very large numbers of caps (>100) for the
most part.

For the UEFA ones, the number of caps the better Italian attacking
players get is lagging quite far behind that of some other countries.
Which suggests much less settled lineups in the attacking positions.

MH wrote:

> On 2024-01-22 13:33, Futbolmetrix wrote:
>> https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/record-italy-goalscorer-gigi-riva-dies-aged-79-2024-01-22/
>>
>> :-(
>>
>> How his puny 35 goals are still the all-time record for the Italian NT
>> is one of football's greatest mysteries.

> Goals per game is very respectable at 0.83 . Only 42 caps. Presumably a
> lot fewer caps were against weak opposition, too, since there were fewer
> games overall, and countries like Andorra, San Marino, Faroes, Malra,
> Liechtenstein and so on were not competing internationally.

Yes, Riva would likely have put a more respectable number if his career had not been cut short by injuries.

> All of Italy's leading scorers since mid 70s have pretty dismal goals
> per game rations - which is probably why their average cap numbers don't
> compare all that well to the ones from other countries -a lot of
> chopping and changing.

[list snipped]

Yes, the relative non-longevity is a key aspect here. I don't know how much the low goal-per-game ratio of several key players contributed to their low number of caps. There were a lot of other things going on:

- concentration of elite attacking talent in narrow age windows, leading to a lot of competition for playing time (Altobelli, Graziani, Rossi and Bettega in the 1970s-80s; Baggio, Mancini, Zola, Del Piero, Totti, Signori in the 1990s-2000s).
- Late bloomers (Vieri, Toni)
- Injuries and suspensions (Rossi)
- Incompatibility with NT coaches (Baggio and Vialli)
- Not caring much about the national team (Totti in his prime regularly found some niggling injury around NT games. He also retired from the NT immediately after the 2006 WC)
- Players played out of position (Del Piero for much of his NT career. This is in part due to the first point, he was deemed incompatible with Totti)

Futbolmetrix was thinking very hard :
> - concentration of elite attacking talent in narrow age windows, leading to a
> lot of competition for playing time (Altobelli, Graziani, Rossi and Bettega
> in the 1970s-80s

don't forget Paolino Pulici, with just a few caps even if he was three
times top scorer in Serie A

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On Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 8:28:05 AM UTC+1, Ammammata wrote:
> Futbolmetrix was thinking very hard :
> > - concentration of elite attacking talent in narrow age windows, leading to a
> > lot of competition for playing time (Altobelli, Graziani, Rossi and Bettega
> > in the 1970s-80s
>
> don't forget Paolino Pulici, with just a few caps even if he was three
> times top scorer in Serie A

Same with Roberto Pruzzo.

Ciao,
Werner

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Werner Pichler wrote:

>> don't forget Paolino Pulici, with just a few caps even if he was three
>> times top scorer in Serie A

> Same with Roberto Pruzzo.

And Signori. Both Pruzzo and Signori fall in two categories: lots of competition for playing time with other strikers their age, and incompatibility with NT managers (not sure about Pulici).