Gianluca Vialli was a proud Italian but also a natural Londoner.
His arrival at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 1996 heralded a new sense of style in the Premier League, the capital and the nation. And until he finally succumbed to cancer aged 58, he never left his adopted home.
Vialli, who was brought up in a 14th century castle purchased by his self-made father, always oozed class from a different age.
After scoring four goals at Barnsley, his then manager Ruud Gullit claimed he was playing better because “he’s given up smoking”.
And before his first game in charge as Chelsea player-manager in 1998, he opened bottles of champagne in the dressing room before becoming the toast of London by beating Arsenal to reach the League Cup final.
When Vialli arrived here on an early Bosman transfer, he was already part of the footballing aristocracy. He had won Serie A with Sampdoria and his close friend Roberto Mancini lost the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley before his then world record £12m transfer to Juventus. He captained the Turin giants to the 1996 Champions League title before leaving for England.
Gullit had joined the previous year in the vanguard of the foreign revolution of the Premier League and Vialli added another layer of sophistication. For years, the top English talent had been lured to Spain and Italy. Now the world’s best were coming here and the Italian’s dashing play and personality helped establish the Premier League soap opera as prime-time entertainment.
He quickly fell out with Gullit but became a Chelsea fan favourite as he famously scored two away goals in a Norwegian blizzard against Tromso on the way to winning the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1998. By then he had taken over from Gullit as player-coach as his shirt, tie and V-neck sweater combo set new fashion trends down the King’s Road. On the field, his multi-national side also made their mark in SW6 and beyond.
Before the days of Roman Abramovich, Chelsea beat Real Madrid to win the UEFA Super Cup and qualified for the Champions League for the first time before he was sacked by Chelsea as suddenly as he was appointed.
After one unhappy season at Watford, he became a respected commentator for Sky Italia before his first pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2017. He underwent an operation and two cycles of chemotherapy on the cancer he called "an unwanted guest" and "a travelling companion that I would have gladly avoided”.
He became head of delegation for Mancini’s Italy team in 2019 and celebrated their Euro 2021 triumph at Wembley in his London. It was a role he stepped down from last week before he returned to the Royal Marsden. For me, he personified more open, vibrant and optimistic times at the turn of the century when international Britain was the envy of the world.
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Always charming, courteous and engaging, his passing has caused an outpouring of grief in his homeland where Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni called him “a symbol of Italy which wins, which fights, which gets excited for achieving the dream of becoming champions of Europe that day at Wembley.”
He is survived by his South African wife Cathryne White Cooper and their teenage daughters Olivia and Sofia.
When Vialli revealed his cancer diagnosis in 2018, he said: “As soon as they gave me the news, I immediately set myself long-term goals. Not to die before my parents and lead my daughters up the aisle”.
