Graeme Souness this morning paid a heartfelt tribute to Italian football icon Gianluca Vialli, who has sadly died aged 58 after a long battle with cancer.
Vialli spent the majority of his playing career in his home country at Cremonese, Sampdoria and Juventus before enjoying three years at Chelsea between 1996 and 1999, scoring over 250 goals in total across the four clubs he represented. He later managed the Londoners and Watford.
Deeply respected for his contributions within football, the former striker was loved by those in Italy especially and played for his country at two World Cups and one European Championship before taking on a role within the national team as delegation chief in October 2019.
Vialli first revealed in 2018 he had successfully overcome pancreatic cancer and was given the all-clear two years later in 2020. The iconic forward explained in December 2021 though that the disease had reared its head again. Cancer may have claimed the life of Vialli at the age of just 58 but his inspirational approach to his diagnosis was explained in his 2018 book titled 'Goals'. "I am not a warrior. I am fighting cancer. It's too strong an enemy and I wouldn't stand a chance," he wrote. "I am a man on a journey and cancer has joined me on that journey like an unwanted travel companion. My goal is to keep moving, keep walking until he's had enough and leaves me."
Tributes have poured in for the two-time Serie A winner after his death was confirmed by the Italian Football Federation, with Souness among those mourning his passing. The pair were team-mates for two years at Sampdoria and Souness became emotional as he remembered Vialli the person, as well as the player.
"I only had the news ten minutes ago, and I can't tell you how good of a guy he was," the Liverpool legend said on Sky Sports News. "Forget football for a minute, he was just a gorgeous soul, a truly nice human being. I went to Italy when I was 31 years old, he was 20, and was just fabulous to be around. He was such a fun-loving guy, full of mischief, such a warm individual and a fabulous player.
"I don’t want to talk about his footballing [ability], I want to talk about him as a human being. I’m going to hear a lot of his name, and correctly so with people saying magnificent things about his playing ability, but what a human being. My condolences go to his family and his wife, they have been blessed their paths crossed. His kids were blessed to have a dad like that and his wife was blessed to be married to a man like that.
"I couldn’t tell you nine other people who have impacted my life like that. Not because he did anything for me in particular, I was a senior pro then, but to see him around other people; I think if you crossed his path once or if you were in his company for ten or 15 minutes once, you remember him for the rest of your life. He was just a special person, a really, really special person."
Souness continued to pay his respects before the live broadcast was cut as he struggled to hold back the tears. "I'm not a doctor or anything but when I looked at him, I thought I saw a man still in the fight during the Euros [2020] - and they went on to win it," said the Scot. "It's so typical of him that he kept it private, personal. He took it on, as I'd expect him to take it on: it was his fight, he wanted to deal with it himself and didn't want to burden other people with it."
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