THE greatest football match you ever witnessed and the one which compelled you to love the game?
The finest individual World Cup performance of all time?
Paolo Rossi led Italy to a memorable World Cup win in 1982Credit: Rex Features
The Azzurri legend has died at the age of 64Credit: Rex Features
Well if you’re aged somewhere between 45 and 55, I’d be surprised if your answers aren’t Italy 3 Brazil 2 on July 5, 1982 – and Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick.
Rossi’s death at the age of 64 has been met with fulsome tributes from former team-mates, friends, family and Italy’s prime minister.
Yet even to those who never met him, and who knew little of his career outside of that sun-drenched Spanish summer when the Azzurri won the World Cup and Rossi claimed the Golden Boot, the great Italian is forever frozen in time.
He is there, in our mind’s eye, on that Barcelona afternoon, when he vanquished a Brazilian team who were World Cup favourites and one of the most thrilling teams in history.
Part of the indelible magic was that the match, which Italy needed to win to progress to the semi-finals at Brazil’s expense, kicked off in late afternoon, just as we’d arrived home from school.
That World Cup, the first I watched, remains extraordinarily vivid and exotic to any football fan old enough to remember it.
Live football on the television every day was an absolute novelty back then, such glorious gluttony.
Many of my age have commented on the colours of the kits – Italy’s azure blue and Brazil’s marigold yellow.
Rossi’s triumph came in a stylish, exotic World Cup for viewers of the timeCredit: Alamy
The legend’s death comes weeks after 1986 hero Diego Maradona passed awayCredit: Reuters
Even a 0-0 draw between Peru and Cameroon is a spectacle when one team wears white with a red sash the other lot are in green shirts, red shorts and yellow socks.
But marvelling at the Brazil of Zico, Socrates and Falcao had been the highlight until that life-affirming Monday teatime.
Italy had been brutish and defensive until then, and Rossi had not scored in four matches.
Although Italy needed the win, the idea that they might go for the Brazilian jugular seemed unlikely, perhaps suicidal.
Yet three times, Rossi put them in front – a back-post header, a predatory interception and finish, then an instinctive swivel on the six-yard line for the winner.
Having entranced the world, Rossi went on to score twice against Poland in the semi-final, then grabbed the opening goal of the final, a 3-1 win against West Germany, to claim the Golden Boot.
Wide-eyed schoolkids had little idea that Rossi had just returned, controversially, after his ban for a match-fixing scandal had been reduced.
That Rossi, the player of the tournament in 1982, should die before his time, just a fortnight after Diego Maradona, the undisputed winner of that award in 1986, had done the same, is a cruel reminder of the mortality of football’s supposed immortals.
Wide-eyed schoolkids had little idea that Rossi had just returned, controversially, for the World Cup, after his ban for being caught up in a match-fixing scandal had been reduced from three years to two.
He always maintained his innocence and ignorance of that domestic match-fixing farrago – but what a remarkable back-story to Espana 82 that provided.
Rossi would win six major trophies with Juventus, including the European Cup at Heysel in 1985, and score 154 goals in 299 games for club and country.
Rossi won the Golden Boot at Espana 82Credit: Getty Images – Getty
The striker also played for Vicenza, Juventus and AC MilanCredit: Getty Images – Getty
So that World Cup was certainly no flash in the pan.
Yet, even on their own, Rossi’s exploits against Brazil would certainly have been enough.
That a generation of kids should come home from school on a Monday afternoon and fall in love. I mean, how good is that?
Paolo Rossi dead: Legendary Italy striker dies, aged 64, as tributes pour in for 1982 World Cup winner More
