On Thu, 19 Sep 2024 3:46:09 +0000, Lléo wrote:
All this is to ask: how did he suddenly appear in the picture for the
Italian NT's WC 1990 squad? Where did that come from? He seems to have
scored a lot of goals for Juventus in the previous season, so I guess
therein lies my answer. But anyway, it was rather sudden change of
fortunes: by June 1989 he was Serie B top goalscorer for a midtable side
(8th place with Messina). Quite a ride from that all the way to a World
Cup semifinal against Maradona et al, being the tournament's top
goalscorer. And, almost as quickly, he dropped out of the national team radar.
As you say, 15 goals in Serie A with Juve (ahead of Voller, Careca,
Vialli, Serena, Klinsmann, Gullit and others) open a lot of doors. He
was a bit of a late bloomerL: he was nowhere near the radar screen of
the top teams or Italy's youth NTs, and even his breakout season at
Messina in Serie B came when he was already 24.
I think Juve took a bit of a gamble on him in the summer of 1989, in
part because they had no choice. They had been taken off-guard by
Berlusconi's massive investments -- shockingly, the best prospects of
Atalanta, Como and the like (Donadoni, Borgonovo, Simone, etc.) ended up preferring Milan's $$$ to Juve's old-school prestige. I think they also
hoped that Schillaci would emulate the successes of other Sicilian
players who ended up starring for Juve (Furino, Causio, Cuccureddu and especially Anastasi, who actually had some similarities to Schillaci in
terms of playing style).
Anyway, I think there are good chances that I would have called him up
in Fantasy Scout at the time. He wouldn't have been a great FS asset in
the end, but the banter...
I wonder if his meteoric rise also contributed to his quick downfall.
Maybe he never really adjusted to the sudden notoriety of being the
Magical Nights hero.
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