80s goalkeepers: from Piotti to Malgioglio, from Zinetti to Bodini and Garella

In the 80s of Italian football there was a flowering of goalkeepers who had no equal in other historical periods. The family album was varied. Net of the excellence, to constitute the hard core of the movement there was a middle band that for over a decade has confirmed credibility. Reliable goalkeepers who attended Serie A with merit, it would be said: with honor. Every now and then they happened to abandon the glory at high output, the more often they consoled themselves with a solid everyday life. Giulio Drago, who left today at 63, was part of this elected group. His name is linked to Empoli, a team with which he reached the first historic promotion in A and set the unbeaten revenue record in the maximum championship in the 1987-88 season: 491 minutes without taking goals. Like many of his colleagues who have sailed the stormy seas of the province, Drago made his practical sense his stylistic figure.

Zoff, Zenga, Zinetti

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The 80s open with Dino Zoff – World Champion in Spain, national monument – and close with Walter Zenga, the best of his generation. Two champions, two goalkeepers on the opposite for installation between the poles and character, two men who mark the beginning and the end of a decade that also includes extraordinary numbers one such as Ivano Bordon and Giovanni Galli, Franco Tancredi and Stefano Tacconi. But leafing through the almanacs, to puncture to the novel of that decade there are names that deserve to be considered under a new light. Il Bresciano – Di Leno – Giuseppe Zinetti made his debut in A, with Bologna, in 1979, at just 21 years old, emerging practically from nothing: until a few months earlier he was in Imola, in Serie D. He was a goalkeeper who was inserted in the wake of Zoff: so much concreteness, excellent sense of position, no parade for the use and consumption of the photographers. For him also the satisfaction of the convocation with the major national team, third goalkeeper after Bordon and Galli al Mundiato who disputes himself in Uruguay, between the end of 1980 and the beginning of 1981.

Roberto Corti, Bergamo di Treviglio, was also of the same pasta from Zinetti: we remember him with Cagliari, Udinese and Ascoli, along the decade of the 80s. It is unlikely that he would detach the figure from the door box, but between the posts there was a security. He had a particularity: he was one of the first to wear colored shirts, preferably green or yellow.

The Poet Terraneo

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Brianza Giuliano Terraneo called him “the poet”, because he wrote poems. He had a mustache, a boxer nose, in the area – especially in the outputs – was respected. The best years in Radice Turin (2nd behind Verona in 1984-85) and in Milan pre-Berlusconi. For a strange tour of the market, Terraneo could have been the first Italian goalkeeper to play with Manchester United: he made a try under the careful eyes of Alex Ferguson, but then the deal jumped. The Massese Fabrizio Lorieri also played in the Bull, who had reflected from Pantera and later enriched his curriculum with Ascoli and Rome; and the Sardinian – of San Gavino Monreale – Renato Copparoni, who had formed in Cagliari. Copparoni is remembered for being the first Italian goalkeeper to parry a penalty in Maradona: it happened in a 1986 Napoli-Turin. The “Cup” was also the first in Italy to use “All Star” gloves, those with the star (logo that was suggested by Renato). Copparoni has been for years – in the grenade – Terraneo reserve. But when he was called he never made the owner regret.

Bodini and Martina

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Same destiny of Luciano Bodini, of Lenno also, like Zinetti: he took to light with Cremonese and Atalanta, at Juventus for ten years 1979-1989) was the historic reserve first of Zoff and then of Tacconi. Acrobatic was very Silvano Martina, born in Sarajevo from a family of Friulian origin. With the Genoa shirt, where he lived his brightest seasons, he remembers it for involuntarily caused – with an exit outside the area – a head injury to Giancarlo Antognoni, who on that occasion risked life.

Mantuan Alessandro Zaninelli in Catanzaro took the place of Mattolini, the goalkeeper with the Coppola and was the architect of the three salvations of Catanzaro in the early 80s. In Malizia, Molise, he was the goalkeeper of the “Perugia dei Miracoli” who in 1978-79 placed in 2nd place by writing a page of history: it was in fact the Umbrian one the first formation of Italian football, in second place, in second place in second place. Ranking behind Milan who won the star of the star.

Pazzagli and Piotti

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In the second half of the 80s, a security was the Florentine Andrea Pazzagli who, after the convincing years of Ascoli, deserved the call in Milan of Sacchi. He alternated in the posts with the fellow citizen Giovanni Galli. Pazzagli contributed to the conquest of a cup of champions, two European Super Cups and two intercontinental cups. He lived his day of glory on December 9, 1990, when the Milan door defended in the Tokyo final against Olimpia Asunción.

Often the goalkeepers, like Pazzagli, left the province and then scaled the hierarchy of our football. It was the path of Brianza, of Gallarate, Ottorino Piotti. At the end of the 70s, in Avellino, he lined the promotion in A and two sensational salvations. Detail: in three years he did not even jump a game. The great concreteness was its pedestal for the qualitative leap, in the metropolis: Piotti has been for four years (1980-1984, two in A and two in b) Milan goalkeeper. Once this parenthesis is closed, in the second part of the 80s he took away many satisfactions with Atalanta, with the highest point touched in the cup cup semifinal against the Belgians of the Malines, then winners of the trophy. The Rossoneri poles also occupied the Vicenza Giulio Nuciari, as well as the Ascoli Fabio Brini (the mustache at the time, he also showed them off, on a par with Nuciari and Terraneo) he consumed his career in the noble province of Ascoli and Udine. At Lazio there was the Roman Fernando Orsi, while the ups and downs have dotted the career of the Neapolitan Giovanni Cervone, a provincial notebook, with the same physical arrogance and the same attitude of plastic flight.

Malgioglio and Garella

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Finally, the paths of Astutillo Tito Malgioglio and Claudio Garella are special. The Piacenza Malgioglio, a very equipped goalkeeper from a technical point of view, made his debut in A with Bologna, lived happy years in Brescia (voted as the best goalkeeper of the century by the Rondinelle fans), he dressed the shirts of Rome and Lazio (he was contested fiercely for his commitment off the pitch in favor of the disabled boys) and in the end he had the consolation of a championship, from the reserve of Zenga. But here he likes to emphasize the great humanity, the social commitment, the concrete testimony of his own earthly passage with a daily life made of work and caresses, of words and silence in comfort of the weakest. The Turinese Claudio Garella was a goalkeeper other than everyone. They said that hears with the whole body, feet, knees, back, except with his hands; In truth he was a goalkeeper who made Acrobatics his style and reactivity his strength. They are not won, as he did, two badges – the historical one with Verona and the first of Napoli – if you are not a large number one.