Since retiring from the game there have been many things said about Giorgio Chinaglia. He has been controversial both on and off the pitch.
He is a player who has been characterised as a “loose cannon” and “out of control,” off the pitch. However, on the pitch he was fantastic. A player of both skill and power. A player of genuis and arrogance.
Chinaglia grew up in Wales, where he joined Swansea Town Football Club at the age of 19. A year later Chinaglia moved to Italy where he played in the lower leagues before joining capital-club Lazio in 1969. Chinaglia would rise to promenance, for the first time, during his spell in Rome.
Chinaglia would be the catalyst to Lazio’s 1973-’74 Scudetto winning side, while taking home the league’s golden boot. He tallied 24 goals during the Serie A campaign in a team of characters, to say the least. In John Foot’s fantastic book Winning at All Costs, he described the Lazio Scudetto winning team as “a team of bad boys, self-declared fascists and gun-toting parachute enthusiasts.”
This same Lazio team maybe remembered by many fans for their punch up with Arsenal at a dinner following a European Cup match, as well as being given a year suspension from European competition following their aggressive behavior against Ipswich Town in the 1973 UEFA Cup.
At the 1974 FIFA World Cup, Chinaglia would seal his fate as a member of the Italian national team after being substituted Manager Ferruccio Valcareggi took off Chinaglia against Haiti, only for Chinaglia to remove his shirt and throw it to the ground before cursing his manager and tearing apart the dressing room.
His national team career was done from then on.
In the subsequent years, Chinaglia would continue to be loved and hated almost equally while playing with Lazio; and during this chaotic time he began to fear for the saftey of himself and his family in Rome.
Stories abound that he carried a pistol in his waste band for self-defense. Finally, in 1976 Chinaglia “smuggled” himself out of Rome and made his way to the bright lights of New York City. North American soccer and Giorgio Chinaglia would never be the same.
Chinaglia moved to the US and joined what would become the original Galacticos long before Real Madrid dreamed of Zidane, Beckham and Ronaldo. Compared to Pele or Franz Beckenbaur, two of the Cosmos most famous players, Chinaglia still had years left in his legs and was still on top of his game. Chinaglia would build a relationship with Cosmos’ owner Steve Ross that would practically give the Italian control of the team over the years.
Chinaglia routinely picked the team and tactics as the years went on, and he would ride out the decline of the North American Soccer League and the Cosmos into the early 80s.
Pele may have been the headliner of NASL, but it was Chinaglia who was the consumate performer. He scored 242 goals in 254 matches, both regular season and play-offs. A fantastic stat that has never been repeated in any of the re-incarnated versions of NASL or Major League Soccer.
NASL folded in 1984-85, but that didn’t deter Chinaglia from playing one more year for the club in the North American Soccer Indoor League (indoor in North America is the bastard child of ice hockey and futsal).
NASL is remember for Pele, but it was Chinaglia who entertained the fans and kept them coming long after Pele left. He led the league in scoring four times, won the MVP once in ’81 and was the league’s all-time leading scorer.
Since retiring from the game he has been inducted into the USA’s soccer Hall of Fame, as well as worked as a commentator.
However, since his legal troubles in 2006 it seems US soccer has distanced itself from the great striker. With the re-launch of the New York Cosmos it would be a good time to bring out the Italian and introduce a new set of fans to, arguably, the best striker to grace North America’s soccer leagues.
For more on the original New York Cosmos, Pele, Chinaglia and the wild ride of the North American Soccer League I suggest watching Once in a Lifetime: The Extrodinary Story of the New York Cosmos
For more Legends of Calcio don’t forget to check out the Classic Calcio section of Forza Italian Football.
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