Oscar Damiani had a long career playing in three decades for all the major Italian teams, including Inter, Milan, Juventus, Napoli and Lazio.
Giuseppe Damiani, better known as Oscar, was born in Brescia on June 15, 1950 and started playing in the youth teams of Brescia and then moved to Inter but he never played with the first team. He got the nickname “flipper” because he always played pinball in his spare time. In 1969 he signed for Vicenza and started to make a name for himself. He made 68 Serie A appearances with 9 goals before moving to Naples in 1972. After a year (26 league games and 5 goals) he was back in Vicenza and stayed for a year playing every single match and scoring five more goals.
In 1974 he got his big break and went to Turin to play for Juventus. In his first year he scored 9 goals contributing to the scudetto, his only one in his lengthy career. He stayed another season before going back to Naples.
Three seasons later he signed for AC Milan who were in Serie B. His ten goals were a great contribution to the Rossoneri cause as they won the Serie B championship and were promoted to Serie A. He stayed one more year before signing for Parma in Serie B. He also played a couple of games for New York Cosmos in 1984.
In 1985 he played his last year in professional football for Lazio. With the chaos at the club he could not give much of a helping hand.
Damiani has two caps for Italy, both friendlies played in 1974 against Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
Once he stopped, he became a sports agent. Over the years he has represented a number of players, two of them Lazio legends Giuseppe Signori and Tommaso Rocchi but also Alessandro Costacurta, Liliam Thuram and Andrej Shevchenko.
Damiani was an excellent forward, fast, quick thinker, not particularly tall (1.75) but lethal when he had the chance, as shown by his two goals against the Biancocelesti in the above game. When he came to Lazio he was past his prime but made 14 appearances.
Lazio Career
Season | Appearances Serie B |
1985-86 | 14 |
Sources
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