Footballing Introductions

When i was young, i never had any friends who supported any kind of football team, it was just my good friend Andy, Brother Rich and myself sat around playing computer games on the Commodore 64, SNES or watching Wrestling all day at weekends and all evening until bed after school. My parents weren't into football either (although my mum did have a brief fling with Leeds Utd in the 70's). So in the early 90's my football knowledge consisted of only recognizing the Sheffield Wednesday and Man Utd shirts due to pupils at school wearing them on none uniform day.

My influences were limited.

One day, i believe in mid 1994, Andy used his holiday spending money to buy a game for the SNES called 'International Superstar Soccer' and this is where i first met this man to the left. Galfano.

One of the best players on the game, he played for Italy and had a distinct feature, he seemed to have a ponytail. A different hairstyle on this game was pretty rare because barring Galfano and a player for Colombia called Murillo (AKA Carlos Valderamma as i found out) pretty much all the players had generic hairstyles. I was ALWAYS Italy because of this guy, paving the way for the future.

Andy told me that he had read in a gaming magazine that the players on ISS were based on actual footballers and that summer i saw an advertisement for World Cup 94 and decided to sit and watch both my first football match and my first big tournament in anticipation to see the player who i had been controlling the months before. I wasn't Disappointed.

I had found the real life Galfano at the 94 World Cup. I had spotted that ponytail dangling over the back of that beautiful dark blue shirt. My first real memory of him was his 2 goals against Bulgaria in the Semi finals, his first came from a throw in on the left wing, picking the ball up and jinking it round the first player, running up towards the right wing across the box, knocking it past a second player and drilling a right footed shot past the keeper. His second, latching onto a looped through ball, let the ball bounce and placed it smack into the right hand corner and in off the post.

As i'm sure most of you know, the final against Brazil ended in a pretty drab 0-0 draw and went to penalties where the great Franco Baresi had already missed one penalty and it all relied on Baggio to keep them in the shootout.

Unfortunately it was a ballooned effort over the bar and that view of Baggio kneeling on the grass as Brazilians celebrated around him still sticks with me today, but at the time it did not stop me from wanting to further my knowledge of football and especially the Italian game.



Roberto Baggio turned 46 years of age this past Monday, a gentleman on and off the pitch, one of the greatest Italian number 10's ever and if it wasn't for International Superstar Soccer and the man himself, it could have all turned out very differently for me. Happy Birthday Roberto, may your jinky skills and ponytail live on forever.