Italian soccer player, Gianluigi Lentini, made a huge impact on the world through his amazing skill. He was signed by AC Milan for a then-world record of £13 million in 1992, and only played 13 games for Italy.
Andreas Brehme was also pretty spectacular. He scored a goal that was deflected off Peter Shilton during the semi-final game against England, leading them to victory in penalties!
After crushing the English team’s hopes in Turin, Brehme shifted to Rome and upstaged Diego Maradona’s performance.
Andy Brehme was part of a West Germany team filled with talented players like Jürgen Klinsmann and Lothar Matthäus. In the final match against Argentina, he had to take the penalty shot to determine the winner. Despite Argentina ending the fight with nine men and claiming that it was unfair, Brehme stayed calm and scored the goal. He was amazing at what he did – totally skillful, unparalleled in his field.
Two and a half months later, three German soccer stars climbed into a bus in Milan. At that time Italy had a lot of money to spend on their top soccer teams, as they were competing against each other.
Juventus, one of those teams, made an expensive purchase by signing Roberto Baggio from Fiorentina. It seemed like he didn’t want to leave Florence but the Fiorentina president had no choice in the matter.
Silvio Berlusconi, who owns AC Milan, brought three Dutch players (Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard). Ernesto Pellegrini from Inter had to do something too and he spent a lot of money on getting a team with German players. They won their first two matches and they were supposed to win against newly promoted Torino who hadn’t won a single game yet.
To congratulate themselves for getting promoted, Toro’s president spent a lot of money on Spaniard Rafael Martin Vasquez and found a talented young goalkeeper named Luca Marchegiani. However, the team coach Emiliano Mondonico was left with a squad full of players that weren’t that good. One of these players was from Carmagnola which is a small city near Turin, who happened to be very talented in football.
21-year-old Gianluigi ‘Gigi’ Lentini was very impressive during his promotion campaign. He ran a lot on the pitch, had great abilities when it came to scoring goals, and could also attack from either side of the field. His right foot kick was especially strong but he could also use his left reasonably well.
Lentini usually managed to get past opponents in different ways; with tricks, speed, or by simply keeping his head up while running through them. Alongside this, he started training hard and turned into an incredible player when it comes down to football skills.
Italian football used to be very organized and focused on defense rather than being an exciting show. Lentini defied this style; he was a talented player and rarely trained by anyone, which brought fun back in the game. Those around Turin saw potential on him, but they knew Serie B (minor league) wasn’t the place to showcase it since only Serie A was what made players become stars.
The league was really rich and the best players wanted to join it. Players like Brehme who were better than Como, Catanzaro, and Cosenza’s full backs.
Then the game started and Toro was all around Inter. Mondonico managed his team in a way that gave them a lot of urgency and Inter was stuck because Lentini was leading the team.
For 45 minutes, Andreas Brehme was having a tough time. Then Giuliano Lentini picked up the ball, ran 40 meters and scored against goalkeeper Walter Zenga to give Torino a 2-0 win. This made everyone stunned as Brehme wasn’t expected to be beat by such a young player. With this success, Torino’s season started with Lentini playing the lead role.
In January, Toro, or the team, visited Sampdoria who was in the lead and would soon become champions. Roberto Mancini and Gianluca Vialli, two really talented players were playing for Sampdoria. Unfortunately, Toro had quite a few injured players. Even so, they managed to win thanks to Lentini’s breaks.
A young striker named Giorgio Bresciani scored two goals and won a famous game for Toro. Later the same month, player Lentini made his debut in the Italian national team.
April was an even better month for Toro as they won their first Turin Derby in seven years and got qualified for Uefa Cup. Adding to this good news, their rivals Juventus didn’t qualify for any European tournament.
For 10 years around World War Two, Torino was the best sports team in Italy. That all changed tragically in 1949 when a plane crash called the Superga Air Disaster happened and wiped out the entire Torino team, coaches, and leading officials.
The funeral was attended by one million people and everyone was sad. Juventus, which is supported by a wealthy family and company, stepped up to take the lead in this difficult time.
Toro had some wins after Superga, but something always seemed to go wrong afterwards. People usually associated them with being unlucky, so they weren’t as popular or successful as Juventus. They were well-liked in their local region, but still considered Turin’s less fortunate team.
Borsano was very rich and he used his money to help Torino get back into Serie A. He became highly popular when Torino ended up in fifth place in the league. To celebrate, he went to the bank again to get more money.
Borsano was a small man who wanted to become powerful through politics. There was an upcoming election and he announced his intention to run for office in the area around Turin, which had mostly left-leaning people. Most of the people in this area were workers and laborers who made up the fan base of ‘Il Presidente’.
If Borsano was elected he would be free from being charged with any crimes, but most voters didn’t care about that – at least not when they voted for him.
In 1991, the economy was doing great and it was easy to borrow money. Borsano borrowed a lot of money and called Mondonico in the summer of that year to tell him he had a present for him. When asked what his present was, Borsano said it was Belgium’s best soccer player – Enzo Scifo. Enzo was a very talented midfielder and joining him with Martin Vasquez and Lentini made an exciting team for Granata fans.
When a great Brazilian goalscorer, Walter Casagrande, joined ‘Toro’ they had high hopes of winning awards. Even though it wasn’t quite like the incredibly successful team from before, they still made everyone proud.
The 1991-92 season was full of success for Milan and once again Toro were in good shape too, finishing third. At this point their hard work started to get noticed and people began to take an interest in their players.
People were beginning to suspect that something was wrong with Borsano’s money. However, he insisted that Lentini – who was living his dream as a professional football player until June 1995 – couldn’t be sold. Borsano and the team had more important issues to take care of: on April 1st, 1992 they went to the Bernabeu stadium for a UEFA Cup semi-final game – Real Madrid eventually won 2-1, but the away goal promised a promising match at home.
Four days after the election in Italy, Torino won against Juve during a derby match. A person named Borsano was voted to hold a position in the Chamber of Deputies, and individuals who remember the Grande Torino were eager for a rematch with Madrid.
Both teams didn’t have enough people attending their games since the stadium that they shared only had 69,000 seats. However, when Real Madrid came to visit, it seemed like everyone wanted to come watch them !
The people of Piedmont were really excited to be reunited with their club and they bought all the tickets quickly.
Seven minutes into the game, Lentini delivered a powerful cross towards the post at the back and it was too good for Real’s Brazilian centre-half Ricardo Rocha who accidentally pushed it into his own net.
Chendo wore the jersey of Real as their right-back during this match. He wasn’t very talented but most fans adored him for being so dependable.
With only 13 minutes left to go, Lentini knew he had to act fast if Real wanted an away goal. He raced towards Chendo and deftly passed him on the ground before looking up and spotting Luca Fusi by the far post – pandemonium ensued!
Torino eventually faced Dennis Bergkamp’s Ajax in the final of the tournament, where they played out a thrilling 2-2 draw at home.
Unfortunately, the Torino team almost won a soccer match but missed it when they hit the woodwork three times and ended with a 0-0 score. This was a great regret for their player, Gianluigi Lentini, who had followed another Italian, Gianluca Vialli, as the most expensive player in the world at that time.
After Borsano’s empire got beaten, he began losing money until it all fell apart. This gave two big clubs, like Juventus and AC Milan, the chance to get their hands on his best player. Juve was extra interested since this had almost happened 25 years ago when they tried to sign a talented winger called Gigi Meroni.
When news spread, Torino fans filled the streets to protest a possible deal they weren’t happy with. The president of Juventus (also known as Juve), Gianni Agnelli, stepped in and stopped the deal from going through. There were around 40,000 Torino fans employed by Fiat which would have been affected if Meroni switched sides and joined their rivals.
Berlusconi took advantage of the situation by taking Lentini to his villa in a helicopter and making him feel like a friend. He planned to sell Lentini, even though he didn’t want to, since Berlusconi had made an agreement with Borsano the year before.
The deal cost £13m, which worked out as £22m (65 billion lire) with all the extras included. That made Lentini the most expensive footballer in history, while Borsano got £3.3m cash as part of the arrangement.
Someone falsely accused Lentini of not caring about his fans, even though he tried his best to keep him. This made a lot of people in Italy upset as they thought it was crazy that someone so young should get so much money. To make matters worse, Borsano let go of several local players and one midfielder enforcer.
The fans of Toro were so angry and frustrated that they protested in the streets. Borsano was warned to steer clear, because a lot of the ultras went to the club’s office and wanted him out. There was one fan who took responsibility and sued Toro under an Italian law that said he didn’t get his money’s worth for a season ticket.
Borsano’s business collapsed and he was arrested for his wrongdoings. Over the next 15 years, the fans of Toro had to pay the consequences. When Lentini joined Milan, he did fairly well but wasn’t amazing compared to the other great players in his team.
Alessandro Lentini was not a famous player when Milan got defeated in the Champions League Final against Marseille in 1993. The media looking for someone to blame ended up blaming Lentini because he had very expensive transfer fees.
At Toro, Gigi’s long hair, earring and love for Ibiza vacation made him popular with people. They thought he was just a simple guy from the countryside who enjoyed playing football with so much passion. But now they believed this style wasn’t suitable for an internationally known team like AC Milan.
Lentini was supposed to be sophisticated and worldly, but he was not like these things. He was a young man from Carmagnola who had suddenly become incredibly rich – and liked doing the kind of things that young men from Carmagnola enjoyed.
People started talking about his late-night activities, then something extraordinary happened with him in the summer…
Lentini was a part of the AC Milan team that competed in the 1993 European Cup Final against Marseille. He was dating Rita Bonaccorso, who was married to Juventus’ football player named Salvatore ‘Totò’ Schillaci. Back then, Schillaci was quite famous after winning Italia ’90, but things started going wrong for him and his marriage since then. Bonaccorso and Schillaci were having an ongoing fight with Lentini stuck in the middle of it all.
Lentini had just finished playing in a tournament in Genoa and got into his canary-yellow Porsche 911 to drive back to Turin, where Bonaccorso was waiting for him. Lentini drove really fast on the A21 highway, but ended up getting a flat tire. He stopped at a service station and got the spare tire on quickly, so he could get back onto the road. However, Lentini didn’t realize that this new tire couldn’t handle going more than 50 mph, which meant he was driving much too fast at 125 mph!
A truck driver, who was driving behind them, was shocked to see the car in front of him swerving uncontrollably all over the road. He quickly jumped out from his truck’s cab and rescued Lentini from the crash before it burst into flames.
After being put in a coma, the footballer, Lentini, wasn’t quite as good as before. He barely played for three seasons and only scored six league goals. People believed that being in the coma had affected his balance and ability to think clearly.
No matter what people may think, he was still visually aware when he got married to a pretty Swedish model. Like always, he decided to have the wedding at his beloved parish church in Carmagnola and there were not many members of the media or football world who were invited.
As Lentini was getting older and less fit, people said he did not take football as a serious job. However, his maverick personality made him the perfect player for Turin’s team because their coach taught him well and people thought of him as the new Gigi Meroni. But when he moved to Milan, it was expected that he had to be professional in order to play with them.
The club got a psychologist to figure out how well the players were doing. They measured different things like reaction time and physical capabilities, so they could get good data on how the players were performing. This was different from what was done with Mondonico and Lentini in Turin.
The story was that Lentini enjoyed going to the discotheque more than practicing on the football field and his relationship with Bonaccorso and car accident were a sign of something bad happening. He wasn’t good at playing football in this modern era and when his contract ended, Milan wanted him out badly.
Fortunately, Mondonico was coaching Atalanta located near Bergamo. He offered a solution for Lentini who eventually became the player he had been at Toro again.
When Arrigo Sacchi called him to join the Italy team in 1996, Lentini was only 27 and everyone had high hopes for the future. But at the end of that season, he decided to go back to play for a Serie B football club called Torino.
This ended his career as an international footballer, but it also began a journey where he played for several different clubs. After getting promoted with Torino but then being relegated again soon after, Lentini joined Mondonico at Cosenza which was another Serie B Football Club.
Mondonico was the coach that made him angry while playing football and because his family were from Sicily, he wanted to play there. Plus, he liked the weather in the south too.
When people asked if it felt bad for him, who once was the most expensive footballer in the world, to be playing in a small stadium with only 3,000 fans, Lentini didn’t seem to understand why they would even ask such a question.
When Cosenza, a team that Lentini was part of for some time, got in trouble and were sent down to play in Serie D due to financial issues in 2004, Lentini still stayed on with them. He said yes because the people at Cosenza were really kind. Then he went home after that and when he was 35 years old, one of his old friends asked him to join their local amateur team named Canelli.
On the way to practice one night, Francesco Lentini stopped by Diego Fuser’s place. They had met each other in the Toro school of excellence, but since becoming professionals they haven’t seen or played together in 15 years.
Fuser was not as talented as Lentini, but he still had some success playing with teams like AC Milan, Lazio, Parma and Roma. He was even chosen to represent Italy twenty-five times! Even though it had been a long time since they first knew each other at their school, their friendship stayed strong.
Fuser’s son had an illness that couldn’t be cured, but playing football with his dad brought them some much needed comfort. The two of them kept playing even when it was time for the next level of football and they both remained committed to the game despite turning 40 years old.
Gianluigi Lentini, who is 54 now, attended a 2017 event with some of his former Torino team-mates Rafael Martin Vazquez and Walter Casagrande. They were celebrating 25 years since their team had reached the 1992 UEFA Cup final.
Lentini still lives in Carmagnola where he loves playing billiards together with the people from his hometown. Recently, he also tried beekeeping and opened a honey shop. Unfortunately, the store is gone now.
Recently, in an Italian newspaper, reports showed that 100 000 euros were given by Mr. Lentini to a notorious gang leader. Though he didn’t deny giving away the money and said it was just a loan, the extortion charges against the gang leader were dropped. This story showed us that Mr. Lentini was quite naive about these things.
People still have mixed opinions about him. Some people say he wasted his talents while some think he was a victim of it. Many will tell you that football had changed and become detached from the everyday life of its communities, due to individuals like Borsano and organizations like Berlusconi who made money off it. This caused the Italian game to be lowered into something unimportant, which might explain why its status is so poor in the present day.
Soccer isn’t as good now as it used to be and you can tell because of all the empty stadiums. People said that when Lentini got famous, the soccer started declining and that’s why he’s like a metaphor for the bad times in soccer history.
But, before those bad times, Lentini was an amazing player! Andreas Brehme even saw him play and was stunned by how good he was.
