Gianluca Vialli has revealed he has been battling cancer for the past year but is now feeling in good health.
Vialli was one of Italy's finest strikers during a lengthy playing career, but is well regarded in this country having been player manager of Chelsea as well as coach at Watford.
The 54-year-old has not been in the limelight on these shores so much over the past decade and been doing media work in his home country.
But the former forward admits he has been struggling with illness during 2018, telling Corriere della Serra that he has had eight months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiotherapy to treat cancer.
He said: "I'm fine now, very well indeed. It's been a year and I'm back to having a beastly physique, although I still have no certainty of how this match will end.
"I knew it was hard and hard to have to tell others, my family. You would never want to hurt the people who love you: my parents, my brothers and my sister, my wife Cathryn, our little girls Olivia and Sofia. And it takes you as a sense of shame, as if what happened to you was your fault.
"I used to wear a sweater under my shirt so no-one noticed anything. I was still the Vialli everyone knew, then I decided to tell my story .
"I hope my story can inspire people, who are at crucial intersections of their lives."
