The Italian footballer Luigi Riva, who has died aged 79, was his country’s all-time leading scorer with 35 goals in 42 international appearances between 1965 and 1974. A swift and deadly forward, he established his reputation by making the most of the limited opportunities offered to attackers confronting the stern defensive tactics espoused by coaches in Italy’s domestic league.
Just under six feet tall, with a saturnine visage, a lean build and a devastating mixture of speed and shooting power, “Gigi” Riva scored the first of two goals in the final of the 1968 European championships, giving Italy victory over a highly rated Yugoslavia team in Rome. Two years later in Mexico City he scored in Italy’s enthralling 4-3 victory in extra time over West Germany in a World Cup semi-final, before making much less impression as he and his teammates were humbled 4-1 in the final by Pelé’s resplendent Brazil.
But Riva is most fondly remembered as the star of a club team from Sardinia who, under the coach Manlio Scopigno, known as “the philosopher”, won the Italian first division championship in 1969-70. Only six years after leading Cagliari to promotion from the second tier, Riva unlocked catenaccio (doorbolt formation) defences to score the goals with which they captured the Serie A title from the northern giants of Turin and Milan.
The depth of that Sardinian affection could be seen at his funeral, held in the city where he had seen out his playing career despite lucrative offers from Juventus and other clubs, and where he lived for the rest of his life. An estimated 30,000 people – almost twice the current capacity of the club’s stadium – congregated in Cagliari outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria, waving flags, banners and scarves in the dark red and blue club colours he had worn with such distinction.
The presence among the pallbearers of the defender Fabio Cannavaro and the goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, two heroes of Italy’s teams of the 21st century, represented a salute to Riva’s role later in life. Between 1988 and 2013 he served as the Azzurri’s team manager, his function seemingly iconic rather than practical, alongside head coaches including Arrigo Sacchi, Cesare Maldini, Dino Zoff, Giovanni Trapattoni and Marcello Lippi. As an elegant chain-smoking elder statesman, Riva was with Lippi when Italy beat France to win the 2006 final in Berlin.
Born in Leggiuno, a small town in Varese, close to Lake Maggiore and the Swiss border, he was the youngest of the four children of Edis and Ugo Riva. His father, who had worked as a tailor and a barber before taking a factory job, died in an accident at work when Luigi was nine, leaving Edis to take employment as a maid to support her son and three daughters, Lucia, Candida and Fausta. When Edis also died, Luigi was sent to a Catholic boarding school for three years before returning home to work in a factory, while playing football for the Lavegno Mombello youth team, scoring 63 goals in two seasons.
In 1962 he joined Legnano, a club in the third division. After one season with them he moved up a tier when Cagliari offered a transfer fee of 37m lire (then worth about £25,000, or about £650,000 today). In 13 seasons and 374 games with the Sardinian club he scored 204 goals, some of them with powerful headers but most with his formidable left foot, in honour of which the journalist Gianni Brera awarded him the nickname Rombo di tuono (Thunderclap). Winning his first international cap in 1965, aged 20, he became the first Cagliari player to receive such recognition.
During his best years he figured highly in the annual contest for the Ballon d’Or, the award for Europe’s best footballer. He finished second in 1969, behind his compatriot Gianni Rivera, the golden boy of AC Milan’s midfield, and third the following year, behind Gerd Müller of West Germany and Bobby Moore of England.
Three months after the defeat by Brazil in Mexico in 1970, Riva’s right leg was broken by a tackle from an Austrian defender during a European championship qualifying match in Vienna. He returned to beat Giuseppe Meazza’s record of 33 international goals and to play a part in Italy’s first away victory over England at Wembley in 1973. But during Italy’s appearance in the 1974 World Cup finals in West Germany he was unable to regain his former level, making his last appearance for the Azzurri as they went out in the group stage.
Leg injuries suffered in a tackle by an AC Milan defender in 1976 led, after several unsuccessful comeback attempts, to his formal retirement two years later, aged 33. He founded a football school that bears his name and served a short term as Cagliari’s president.
He is survived by Gianna Tofanari, his former partner, with whom he remained on friendly terms after their separation, his sons, Nicola and Mauro, and five grandchildren.
• Luigi Riva, footballer, born 7 November 1944; died 22 January 2024
