Giuseppe Savoldi

Giuseppe Savoldi was born on 21 January 1947 in Gorlago, a small town in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy. His father was a railway worker and his mother, Gloria Guerini, worked at a button factory; she was also an athlete who in 1946 won the first Italian women's volleyball championship with Amatori Bergamo. The family was sporting: his younger brother Gianluigi, known as Titti, also became a Serie A footballer.

Beppe began with basketball at about eight years old, playing on the courts of the oratory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in central Bergamo and later with A.L.P.E. Bergamo. He was also a regional high jump champion. The spring he developed on the basketball court became the trademark of his heading game. Atalanta took him into their youth ranks at 15, and for a while he kept playing basketball in parallel, giving it up only after his first season with Atalanta's first team.

Savoldi's formal schooling has not been documented in detail in public sources. His football education came in the Atalanta youth sector in Bergamo, where a Hungarian youth coach is credited with persuading him to choose football over basketball. He developed there as a left winger and inside forward before coach Stefano Angeleri moved him to centre-forward, the position he would make his own.

Atalanta (1965 to 1968). Savoldi made his professional debut on 29 August 1965 in the Coppa Italia, scoring, and his Serie A debut on 5 September 1965 against Fiorentina, used at first as a left winger. On 30 January 1966 Angeleri played him at centre-forward for the first time. He scored his first Serie A goal on 9 October 1966 against Lazio and then a winning brace in the Lombard derby against Brescia. In 1967-68 he scored 12 league goals, his first double-figure season.

Bologna (1968 to 1975). In 1968 Bologna signed him in exchange for Sergio Clerici plus 175 million lire. He won the Coppa Italia in 1969-70 and 1973-74, finishing as top scorer of the competition both times, and the 1970 Anglo-Italian League Cup, scoring in the second leg in Manchester. In 1972-73 he was joint Serie A top scorer (capocannoniere) with 17 goals alongside Gianni Rivera and Paolo Pulici. In the 1974 Coppa Italia final against Palermo he scored a 90th-minute penalty to make it 1-1 and then converted again in the shoot-out. In January 1975 at Ascoli a ball boy kicked one of his goals back out of the net and the referee waved play on.

Napoli (1975 to 1979). In July 1975 Napoli signed him in a deal totalling about two billion lire, a world record that earned him the nickname "Mister due miliardi". He scored 77 goals in four seasons, won the 1975-76 Coppa Italia and the 1976 Anglo-Italian League Cup, and scored 12 goals in the 1977-78 Coppa Italia, a record for a single edition until Gianluca Vialli. He scored four goals in a match twice: in a 5-0 league win over Foggia and in a 5-0 Coppa Italia win over Juventus.

Bologna again and Atalanta (1979 to 1983). He returned to Bologna as captain for 1979-80 and scored 11 league goals before the 1980 Totonero ban. After the ban was shortened, he played a final season with Atalanta in Serie B in 1982-83 and retired in 1983. Across his Atalanta spells he played 83 matches and scored 22 goals.

Italy. He won four senior caps in 1975, debuting on 8 June in Moscow against the Soviet Union and scoring his only goal from a penalty against Greece in Florence on 30 December 1975.

Coaching. He worked in Atalanta's youth sector in the 1980s and then coached in Serie C1, C2 and D, at Telgate, Carrarese, Spezia, Lecco, Massese, Saronno, Siena, Leffe and Valle d'Aosta. His best result was promotion to Serie C1 with Saronno via the 1995 play-offs. He left Valle d'Aosta after a few weeks in late 2002, ending his coaching career.

Savoldi was a strong, quick centre-forward who could also play across the front line. He was best known for his aerial game, built on the leap he had developed playing basketball, for acrobatic finishes, a powerful left foot and great reliability from the penalty spot. Bologna remembered him as "fortissimo di testa e in acrobazia, una sentenza con il sinistro" (superb in the air and in acrobatics, a sure thing with his left foot). His 45 Serie A penalty goals rank among the highest totals in the league's history.

Savoldi kept his private life low-key. He was married to Eliana, and after retiring he settled with her in a house he built at the foot of the Maresana hill, on the border between Ponteranica and Bergamo, with a view of the Città Alta. The families of his children, Gianluca and Guia, later settled nearby, and he was often seen playing with his grandchildren in the garden. His son Gianluca Savoldi played for Napoli and Reggina among others and later became a coach. His wife's family ran a photo and optics business near Bergamo station, and in the mid-1970s Beppe helped start Ottica Gazzera in Bergamo, an optics business he continued to work in after his playing days.

Savoldi spoke frankly about football. He believed his limited national team career reflected the habit of Italy coaches of the 1970s to pick blocks of players from the big clubs such as Juventus, Torino and Lazio, rather than the merits of players at clubs like his. He was philosophical about the Ascoli ball boy incident, saying he did not even care at the time because he had already scored twice, and he later shook hands with Domenico Citeroni on television. He also reflected that he had arrived at Napoli at the end of a cycle, too late to win the scudetto.

Savoldi is remembered as one of the great Italian centre-forwards of the 1970s, with 168 Serie A goals in 405 matches. For Bologna he was the first "Beppegol" and the idol of a generation, with 140 goals in all competitions. For Napoli his transfer was a symbol of ambition and of the passion of the city, and for football history he is often cited as the world's first million-pound player, ahead of Trevor Francis's 1979 move in England. After his death the Italian national team held a minute of silence in Bergamo, and Atalanta, Bologna and Napoli all paid tribute.

Coppa Italia: 1969-70 and 1973-74 (Bologna), 1975-76 (Napoli). Anglo-Italian League Cup: 1970 (Bologna), 1976 (Napoli). Mediterranean Games gold medal: Tunis 1967 (Italy). Serie A top scorer (capocannoniere): 1972-73, 17 goals (shared with Gianni Rivera and Paolo Pulici). Coppa Italia top scorer: 1969-70, 1973-74 and 1977-78.

While at Napoli, Savoldi recorded the single "La favola dei calciatori" in 1978, which sold about 70,000 copies. In 2005 he had a small role in the short film "Il ponte", written by the cartoonist Altan and directed by Stefano Missio. In the 2000s he worked as a commentator and pundit for Sky Sport. He also gave many interviews about his career to Italian radio and television.

Savoldi's 1975 transfer was itself controversial: at a time of recession, deputy Angelo Sanza raised a parliamentary question about the sum, and Naples union representatives argued the money could have paid the back wages of the city's street cleaners. In 1980, while captain of Bologna, he was implicated in the Totonero illegal betting scandal and banned for three and a half years. The ban was reduced by two years in the amnesty granted by the Italian football federation after the 1982 World Cup, allowing him a final season with Atalanta.

Giuseppe Savoldi died at his home in Bergamo on 26 March 2026, aged 79, after a long illness, surrounded by his family. The specific illness was not made public. His son Gianluca announced the death on social media, writing that his father's places, home and loved ones had accompanied him to the end, and thanking the doctors and nurses of the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital and the Istituto Beato Palazzolo who had cared for him at home. That evening, before Italy's World Cup play-off semi-final against Northern Ireland in Bergamo, a minute of silence was held in his memory.

The funeral took place on 28 March 2026 at the church of Ognissanti in the monumental cemetery of Bergamo, celebrated by Capuchin friar Marco Bergamelli, with about 200 people present. The scarves of Atalanta, Bologna and Napoli and a specially made Atalanta number 9 shirt lay on the coffin. Delegations from Atalanta and Bologna and the Napoli supporters' club Bergamo Azzurra attended. He was then cremated.