Antonio Maurizio Schillaci, cousin of the famous Totò Schillaci, was born on February 1 1962 in Palermo.
He began his career with Palermo and between 1981 and 1982 he made four league appearances. After a year with Rimini, he was hand-picked by Zdenek Zeman to play for Licata in C2. It was the first club where the Bohemian implemented his style of football and the Sicilian team did very well winning promotion to Serie C1. Schillaci played regularly and scored 22 league goals over two seasons; he was at the peak of his career.
In 1986 he signed for Lazio. The Biancocelesti had been given a 9-point docking due to an alleged (and unproven) involvement of Claudio VInazzani in the match fixing scandal of 1986. His stay in Rome was marred by an injury which nobody was able to resolve properly. He made just 11 appearances with one goal in a season that saw Lazio manage to stay in Serie B after the playoffs.
In the summer of 1987, he was sold to Messina where they finally found out what his physical problem was (the tendon) and healed him. But the career ship had flown. He was very highly considered but after playing so little in three seasons, there was no way back for him. After two years in Sicily, he went to play for Juve Stabia in 1989. His depression led to drugs and he became an addict. After retiring he worked in his cousin’s football school. But it did not last long. The physical and psychological issues plus the drugs made him homeless.
Interviewed by Il Giornale di Sicilia he stated “My decline was very fast and now I find myself on the streets. How do you live? I almost laugh at it, I have fun, I lighten up, I try to cope. But I can't find work, so I sleep in trains at the station. They call it the train graveyard. There are other people with me, we are a group of 20 homeless people. I spend my days thinking about scraping together something to eat and buying cigarettes. I was on the verge of making it. Then at the best moment I went from riches to rags. I experienced my best seasons with Zeman. I scored goals repeatedly. Then Lazio arrived. It was my greatest moment. I lived in luxury, I changed 38 cars, I played in my dream stadium, the Olimpico. A 500 million contract for 4 years. Then something doesn't go right. The first injuries, the periods out. Then I find out why. I go on loan to Messina; there I find my cousin Totò. All the newspapers talked about us, he and I competed to see who could score the most. But my career actually ended in Rome. An injury that was never healed and prevented me from expressing myself at my best. I played a few games and stopped. They called me the "imaginary patient" or the "mysterious footballer", because I was always in the infirmary. I actually had a punctured tendon. In Messina they noticed the problem, they treated me, but my career had already flown away. Then I suffered from other situations. Worse than injuries. I went to Juve Stabia. And there I started with drugs. Cocaine, then heroin. In the meantime, I divorced my wife”.
A couple of young film directors made a documentary on him in 2014, to show the rise and fall of a football player. In 2022 he was living in a Fiat Panda but has since found a place to stay.
A tragic end for a player who could have made it.
Lazio Career
Season | Total appearances | Serie B | Coppa Italia |
1986-87 | 29 | 24 | 5 |
1987-88 | 28 | 23 | 5 |
Total | 57 | 47 | 10 |
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