by None Sat Feb 24, 2007 12:27 am
Should also mention the anniversary of the legendary Omar Sivori, which was last Friday. R.I.P
Telegraph Obituary 19/02/2005
Omar Sivori, the former Argentina, Italy and Juventus forward who has died aged 69, was one of the most skilful players of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and was voted European Footballer of the Year in 1961; yet he possessed a temperament so malign that Juventus's owner, Gianni Agnelli, acknowledged that Sivori's continued presence in the team was "one of my vices".
The left-footed Sivori was bought from River Plate, the Buenos Aires side, in 1957. Following a lean spell in Juventus's fortunes, Agnelli had recently stepped aside as president in favour of his brother Umberto, who promptly acquired John Charles from Leeds and then Sivori for a world record fee of £100,000.
Agnelli's faith in the slender inside-left - 5 ft 7 ins in his rolled-down socks - was soon repaid. He and the towering Charles quickly formed an understanding and began to terrorise opposition defences. In their first season together, Sivori and Charles scored more than 50 goals, and brought the scudetto back to Turin.
Juventus won two more championships in the next three years and also took the Italian Cup in 1959 and 1960. Sivori finished top scorer in the league in 1960, and in his time with the club claimed two records which still stand: the most goals in a Serie A match (six), and the most goals in the Cup in a season (nine).
In 253 appearances for the club between 1958 and 1965, Sivori scored 167 goals. His tally was all the more remarkable as in that time he was also sent off 10 times, thus missing almost an entire season of matches (33) through suspensions. He was a volatile blend of wizardry and devilry, of sublime audacity and sheer spitefulness. His sole object on the pitch appeared to be to hoodwink, to provoke and to humiliate both rivals and the referee.
His hallmark was the "nutmegging" of defenders - pushing the ball between their legs - but his repertoire also included dazzling feints and flicks, superb dribbling, and powerful shooting from distance. Less legitimately, his stock-in-trade was malicious tackling, quarrelsome invective, sly elbowing and a haughty arrogance towards opponents and teammates alike - not for nothing had he been known in Argentina as "El Cabezon", or "Bighead".
On one occasion, in a match against Padova that Juventus already had in the bag, Sivori was awarded a penalty. He whispered to the opposition goalkeeper that he would allow him to regain some respect from his fans, telling him on which side he was going to put his shot. The keeper obligingly dived as indicated, as Sivori contemptuously rolled the ball into the opposite corner.
Aside from his European award, perhaps the high point of Sivori's career came in February 1962, when he scored the goal which condemned Real Madrid to their first ever defeat at home in the European Cup.
Of Italian descent, Enrique Omar Sivori was born at San Nicolas, in Buenos Aires province, on October 2 1935. He was spotted as a youngster by Renato Cesarini, an ex-Juventus player who had gone to work for River Plate, Argentina's leading club, and made his debut for the team at 18, winning the championship in both his first season and the two that followed.
At 22, Sivori was selected for the national team, and later that year formed, with Humberto Maschio and Antonio Angelillo, a lethal striking trio (nicknamed by the press "Angels with Dirty Faces") that won Argentina the South American championship. All three were promptly bought by Italian clubs, a swoop that so riled the pride of the Argentine football association that it banned them from playing for the national side, a decision that severely handicapped its performance in the 1958 World Cup.
At that time, qualified players were allowed to represent two or more countries; thus Di Stefano had played for both Argentina and Spain. Because of his ancestry, Sivori quickly acquired Italian citizenship, and in 1962 turned out for his new country in the World Cup, held in Chile.
Three years later, Sivori was transferred to Napoli, where he formed a fine partnership with another unruly exile, the Brazilian Jose Altafini, that took the club into the top reaches of the table for the first time in many years.
By 1969, however, he was dogged by a persistent knee injury that had forced him to miss much of the preceding season, and his whims were beginning to exhaust the patience of the Napoli board. Matters came to a head in a match against Juventus. Sivori was sent off, and at an impromptu press conference afterwards suddenly embarked on a tirade against his former club.
Sivori was punished with another lengthy suspension, and abruptly decided to return to Argentina, where he played a handful of games for River Plate before announcing his retirement, aged 34. He had won 18 caps for Argentina, scoring nine goals; for Italy he had made nine appearances and scored eight times.
He had invested his wages shrewdly, and thereafter worked as coach only when he wished to. He managed River Plate for a time, and in 1974 steered Argentina to the World Cup, though he was sacked shortly before the tournament began. In later life he lived on a ranch near Buenos Aires, and was Juventus's chief talent scout in South America.
Omar Sivori, who died on Thursday, is survived by his wife, Maria Elena, and by two sons; another son predeceased him.
Home
