The date of June 2, in 1959 to be precise, is a historic one in the history of Italian football for it marked the first appearance of the ‘Golden Boy’.
And he really was a boy then. At the age of just 15 years and 288 days, Gianni Rivera came up against the hardened veterans of Inter as a not-so-fresh-faced teenager during his days with hometown club Alessandria.
That is where it all began for the man who would go on to become one of calcio’s greats. He won three Scudetti and four Coppa Italia at AC Milan as well as five European honours — including twice lifting the European Cup.
In the blue of Italy he reached a World Cup final in 1970 while winning the European Championship and individually, he won countless honours and awards.
He was both loved and hated and throughout his career, and was always discussed passionately by fans and in the media — although his volatile relationship with the famous journalist Gianni Brera may not have been as black and white as some thought, with the writer secretly holding a great deal of respect for the Rossoneri hero.
However, it took Rivera — who would also go on to become a politician later in life after his career ended — on a long journey to get there, one which began in August of 1943 in the midst of World War II.
Rivera was born to newlywed parents Teresio and Edera Arobba, in a suburb of Alessandria called Valle San Bartolomeo; it was an area of Italy that had been devastated by bombing during the battles.
Rivera was the fourth child in the family, given his name after his father had agreed before the birth that he would be named Gianni if he was a boy, who did not have a great deal of money when the young boy was growing up.
The Ballon d’Or runner-up would spend endless hours kicking a leather ball in backstreets with his friends who would play anywhere they could, behind houses, in angry farmers’ fields and even organising one tournament at an airport!
His parents, while encouraging, had higher hopes than the football field for Gianni however.
They wanted their son to become an accountant but it did not take long for all concerned to realise that the only numbers that interested the youngster were the amount of players he could glide past en route to goal.
At 12 years of age, he joined the Oratory Don Bosco team and quickly developed a reputation as a standout attacker. A year later, he joined Alessandria’s youth team (after his father organised a trial at which he wowed scouts and onlookers with his skills) where he met Giuseppe Cornara, coach of the youth side, for the first time and the man who had set up the Football Youth Training Centre in the city.
He was an innovative man and one of the first in Italian football who had dedicated a centre solely to bringing the young talent of the region through, and in 1958 he was awarded the Seminatore d’Oro honour for his work with young players.
It was under his care that Rivera, who had passed his accountancy exams at school, went from stride to stride. At just 14, he began to train infrequently with the first team and even played with them then against Swedish side AEK in a friendly and helped them to a 4-1 win.
News of his displays in tournaments with the youth sides had filtered through to the first team and it was not long before the first team gave him his big chance on the penultimate day of the season.
Player and deputy coach Franco Pedroni pulled him aside and told the teenager three days before the game:
“We don’t have an attacker capable of producing goals, Gianni. We want to test you out and we will hope for the best.”
Against Inter, those who watched him, remembered a brazen, fearless performance against a side who would soon became Grande and who finished that season in third. He was unfazed by the opposition or the crowd as he became the second youngest debutant in Serie A history (Amadeo Amadei beating him by just eight days) and the early indicators were good.
Alessandria had a star on their hands. Unfortunately for them, others realised that too.
After 25 appearances with Alessandria which brought six goals (some of those games played in a wider role before he moved into the centre where he became a legend), he was spotted by AC Milan scout Gipo Viani and they forked over a then record fee of 90 million lire for him in the summer of 1960.
The rest, as they say, is history.
A history that current Diavolo starlet Hachim Mastour, a man of similar age and talent at that stage, is no doubt very familiar with.
