Italian Football Legend, Paolo Rossi, Dies, Aged 64

2020 is turning into quite an Annus Horribilis for international football! Italian Media is this morning reporting that the Football Legend, Paolo Rossi, has died at the age of 64. Rossi’s moment of glory in his career is definitely the 1982 World Cup win for the Italian National Team in a match against West Germany.

In the ’82 World Cup Rossi had scored 6 goals, including a hat trick against Brazil in the second stage of the competition. In that same year, Rossi had also won the Ballon d’Or. Later on, in 2004, FIFA had indicted him in the list of the 100 Best Living Footballers!

The news was broken by his wife, Federica Cappelletti, who took to Instagram to share a photo of her and Paolo, simply captioning it, ‘Per Sempre’/Forever.

 

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A post shared by Federica Cappelletti (@cappellettifederica)

While the cause of death is not known, Italian Media is reporting that he was battling a disease for quite a while.

While a member of Italian soccer club Juventus FC, Rossi won two Italian Serie A titles, a European Cup and a Coppa Italia in his four years with the club. Rossi also played for AC Milan. After his soccer career, Rossi worked as a pundit for RAI.