Gianluca Vialli has died, Sampdoria’s moving letter
Touching letter from Sampdoria dedicated to Gianluca Vialli
From Sampdoria, a club that reached its peak with Gianluca Vialli on the field at the turn of the late 1980s and early 1990s, came a long and moving message dedicated to the memory of the great former striker, who passed away Friday in London after a long battle with cancer.
“There are already those who imagine you between Paolo and Vuja,” the club began in the letter, referring to the president and the coach of the great successes in Italy and Europe, Paolo Mantovani and Vujadin Boskov, “happy to embrace you again but equally amazed to see you again so soon. Yes, soon Luca. Too soon. They say you are never ready to say goodbye to a fellow traveler and, unfortunately, that is indeed the case. Your traveling companion – as you had decided to call him – let you off the train at age 58, infamously tearing up your ticket to new horizons and goals. A ticket to life that, in the end, was worth a bit to all Blucerchiati fans.”
“We have come a long way together,” the message continues, “growing and searching, winning and dreaming. You came boy, we salute you man. We will remember you boy and relentless center forward, because heroes are all young and handsome, and you, since that summer of 1984, have been our hero. Strong and beautiful, with that 9 stamped on your back and the tricolor sewn on your heart. Leader of the strongest Sampdoria, paired up there in front with your twin brother Bobby Gol (Roberto Mancini, ed.). In three words: one of us.”
“A perception that remained so after he tearfully said goodbye to Genoa and the Sud,” the Blucerchiato club continues further. “That’s right: although he lifted trophies around Europe in different colors, suits, and outfits, Gianluca Vialli was Sampdorian and Sampdorians were with Gianluca Vialli. With you, in victory and in defeat, in health and in sickness. In Bern as in Gothenburg, in Marassi on May 19, 1991 as in Wembley a year and a day later. Or as still at Wembley but in July 2021: we were all there in that embrace to the Mancio, in that sobbing cry that we will never forget.”
“We will not forget your 141 goals, your backhands, your cashmere jerseys, your earring, your platinum blond hair, your Ultras bomber. You gave us so much, we gave you so much: yes, it was love, mutual, endless. A love that will not die, today, with you. We will continue to love and adore you because – you know it well after all – you are better than Pelé. And because, despite everything, our beautiful season is destined never to end. It will continue to shine in that blue-circled sky on which you, Luca, have signed forever. “For whom?” “For us!” To his wife Cathryn, daughters Olivia and Sofia, and the entire Vialli family, the club’s deepest condolences,” the club concludes.
