Gigi Riva, Italian football legend, dies at age 79 – 01/22/2024 – Sport

Luigi Gigi Riva, one of the greatest idols of Italian football, died this Monday (22), aged 79, according to the Italian Football Federation.

Riva, top scorer in the history of the Italian national team, European champion in 1968 and runner-up in the world in 1970, contracted an undisclosed illness on Sunday (21) at his home and was admitted to the hospital in Cagliari, the city where he played for almost all his career between 1963 and 1977.

“It is a true national monument that he left us, Gigi Riva embodied the myth of the free man and the extraordinary football player,” said the president of the Italian Football Federation, Gabriele Gravina, in a statement.

Nicknamed ‘Rombo di Tuono’ (sound of thunder) for the power of his shot, he made history in Italian football.

With the national team’s shirt he scored 35 goals in 42 games and lifted the 1968 Euro Cup.

But it was in the 1970 World Cup that he wrote the most beautiful pages of his career as a player.

He was, together with Gianni Rivera, one of the protagonists of the semi-final won 4-3 by Italy against Germany, considered one of the best matches in the history of the tournament.

Riva scored one of the five goals in the stunning extra time in which the Italians won and qualified for the final. In the decision, played at the Azteca stadium, in Mexico City, the Italians were defeated by Pelé’s Brazil 4-1.