His six goals, raw passion and wild eyes will always be as integral to Italia 90 as Gazza’s tears and the stirring sounds of Nessun Dorma.
Salvatore Schillaci came roaring out of the shadows, a relative unknown who energised the host nation with a heady mix of intensity, aggression and instinctive finishing that would have made him a sure-fire hit in the modern game.
‘Toto’, as he was known, had been at Juventus for one season after a £3.5million move from Messina in Serie B, and not won his first senior cap until March, little more than two months before the World Cup.
He was 25 and up front for one of the world’s biggest clubs but others had been expected to lead the Azzurri charge.
Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Mancini were established at Sampdoria, Andrea Carnevale had just helped Napoli to the Serie A title and the exciting emerging talent was Roberto Baggio, about to leave Fiorentina for Juventus.
Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillaci passed away at the age of 59 after a battle with colon cancer
Schillaci, however, stole the show. Like a force of nature from the bench, replacing Carnevale to head in the only goal of Italy’s opener against Austria.
He was a substitute for the second game, coming on in the second half of a 1-0 win against the USA but boss Azeglio Vicini relented to public clamour and paired him up front with Baggio in the third against Czechoslovakia.
Schillaci scored in the ninth minute, the first in a 2-0 win. And, into the knock-out rounds, the goals simply kept coming. He scored a screamer with his left foot from 20 yards for the first in a 2-0 win against Uruguay in the last-16 and the only goal against the Republic of Ireland in the last-eight.
Italy put their faith in him and by the time the semi-final came around against Diego Maradona’s Argentina in Naples, his was the first name on Vicini’s team sheet.
Baggio was left out, replaced by Vialli and Schillaci gave them the lead when he pounced to convert a rebound before the Argentines fought back to grind out a draw and then win on penalties.
Schillaci did not take a penalty in the shootout, saying he had been carrying an injury although he was fit to start and score his sixth goal of the tournament from the spot to beat England 2-1 in the play-off for third.
It won him the Golden Boot and his place in history was assured. He also won the Golden Ball as the best player in the tournament but he found it difficult to cope with his new status.
Having left school at 16 to work as a tyre-fitter he had been launched from the obscurity of Messina in Serie B to an Azzurri icon in little more than 12 months.
Schillaci made over 130 appearances for Juventus and also had a stint with Inter Milan
Schillaci entered the 1990 World Cup with one cap to his name but finished it as a hero
Schillaci came second in the Ballon D’Or won by Lothar Matthaus and under scrutiny as he linked up again with Baggio at Juventus, but his goals refused to flow with quite the same ease. Injury problems took their toll and two years at Inter Milan proved disappointing.
‘I never expected what happened,’ Schillaci told Mail Sport’s Tom Collomosse in 2020. ‘If someone had predicted it for me, I’d have laughed at them. At a certain point, you stop for a minute and you ask yourself, “Is it really true, everything that’s happened?” And all this pressure that’s on you, it becomes heavy, unmanageable. I wasn’t used to dealing with it.’
He only scored once more for Italy, finishing his international career with seven goals in 16 appearances. His last cap came in 1991. As the Azzurri set off for the World Cup in 1994, Schillaci was making his way to Japan where he spent three successful years at Jubilo Iwata and won the J-League.
In retirement, he returned to Sicily where he became a councillor and opened soccer schools. He performed ambassadorial and media duties for Juventus, appeared on Italian reality television and even played the role of a mafia boss in a TV drama.
Schillaci died on Wednesday at the age of 59. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2022.
As the tributes poured in, those old enough to recall that glorious summer of football were transported back in time to a time when they fell in love with Paul Gascoigne, Luciano Pavarotti and Toto Schillaci.
