Giancarlo Antognoni is one of the best midfielders ever to have played for Italy. A Fiorentina legend, he was one of the players who won the World Cup in Spain in 1982.
Born on April 1 1954in Marsciano near Perugia, he started his footballing career with Torino at 15 years of age in 1969, but after a year was sold to Asti in Serie D. In 1972 his big chance: he signed for Fiorentina. His debut in Serie A took place on October 15 and what followed were 15 years in Florence, 429 appearances and 72 goals. He won the Coppa Italia in 1974-75 and the Anglo Italian League Cup in 1975, beating West Ham in the final. In 1976 he became captain.
Antognoni never won the scudetto but certainly did go very close in 1981-82. At the end of the first half of the season the Viola were leading, with one point over Juventus and two more than Roma. Juventus caught up in February and then there was a neck-and-neck race until mid-March when Juve won against Roma away and Fiorentina drew against Torino. With four games to the end the Viola caught up only to fall behind again with two games to the end of the season with a draw in Milan against Inter (Juve had won comfortably at Udine). Udinese, always very democratic when it comes to giving away points to the top teams, lost in Florence and Juve drew with Napoli. With one game to go, both teams were on 44 points. The last two games were Cagliari-Fiorentina and Catanzaro-Juve. At Cagliari, Fiorentina were unable to score, Juve won thanks to a Liam Brady penalty (which was blatant). There was controversy however on a goal not given to the Viola even though the referee was probably right.
On November 22, 1981, there was the incident with Silvano Martina who was playing for Genoa. Playing in Florence, there was a long cross into the box for the Fiorentina captain. As he was going for the ball, Martina came out of his goal to face him and tried to get to the ball first but de facto kneed Antognoni in the head. He fractured his skull in two places and his heart stopped beating for about 30 seconds. Fortunately, the Genoa team doctor was able to untwist Antognoni’s tongue and give him CPR via chest compression and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He was in a coma for two days and then gradually recovered.
In 1984 Antognoni was the victim of another serious injury when he broke his leg. It took him nearly two years to come back. In 1986 he suffered another injury and at the end of the season he left Florence. He signed for Lausanne and stayed in Switzerland for two years until he retired.
Antognoni had a long career with the Nazionale. He debuted on November 20, 1974 against the Netherlands and played regularly. He was part of the team that came fourth in the 1978 World Cup playing five games. In 1982 he played in the World Cup in Spain and he will be remembered for having scored Italy’s disallowed fourth goal against Brazil which was not given for unknown reasons. The Azzurri played terribly in the first phase, but in the second beat both Argentina and Brazil to reach the semi-final. In the game against Poland, he got injured hence did not play in the final against West Germany. In total he made 73 appearances for Italy with 7 goals.
After he stopped playing, he worked for Fiorentina, first as a scout, then team manager and later general director. He was even manager at one point, sharing the bench with Luciano Chiarugi, in the 1992-93 season which saw Fiorentina relegated. In 2001 he resigned after manager Fatih Terim was sacked. He began to work for the Italian Football Federation first as coordinator of the youth team scouts and then as head of delegation for the Under-15s. In 2017 he went back to work for Fiorentina first as club representative and then as club manager. He left in 2021.
Antognoni was a great player, elegant, had a powerful shot, great vision. He will forever be a legend at Fiorentina.
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