On Wednesday evening at Wembley Stadium, Giorgio Chiellini will play his 117th and last international match for European champions Italy. He became a hardhead on the pitch, and even an academic next to it. The appreciation of a special career.
May 16, 2022: After his last home game for Juventus Turin, Giorgio Chiellini says goodbye to his fans in the stadium.
It is a very unusual athlete who will make his final appearance at London’s Wembley Stadium on Wednesday night. Giorgio Chiellini is playing his 117th international match for Italy’s national football team – the edgy defensive specialist is unlikely to make another appearance for the Azzurri.
The European champions Italy meet the South American champions Argentina in this test match. After that, Chiellini will probably have another adventure in the North American Major League Soccer as a professional. After that, he, who has a doctorate, should remain in football as a manager.
His motto was: always get into the fray
The laps of honor are getting more and more impressive for Giorgio Chiellini. In his last home match for Juventus Turin at the Allianz Stadium, he was substituted after just 17 minutes, which was not a disgrace but a tribute. “Each of these 17 minutes stands for a year at Juventus,” Chiellini explained later, touched.
He was celebrated in the stadium, many Tifosi had put on a jersey with Chiellini’s number 3 on the back. Teammates hugged him. Paulo Dybala, to whom Chiellini handed the captain’s armband, even shed a few tears. His wet eyes were probably also aimed at the team-mate, although it is possible that the Argentine was so moved because he himself is about to leave Turin.
May 21, 2022: During the dernière for Juventus, in the away game against Fiorentina, blood drips down the face of the great fighter Chiellini again.
But this farewell to the home crowd after 17 years seemed a little too sentimental for someone like Chiellini, the soon to be 38-year-old gladiator. A week and a half ago, in the very last white-black match, at Fiorentina of all places, against the club where the Tuscan-born made his Serie A debut, Chiellini sustained a head injury. Blood ran down his face. “Chiellini resigns as Chiellini,” wrote the “Gazzetta dello Sport” in great hero worship.
So you finally knew this defense specialist from old hat and grain: always into the fray. A bandage on his head, a mask over his broken nose, blood that is wiped away again and again – these were the outward attributes of this fighter.
Giorgio Chiellini is used to playing with bandages on his head, here’s a shot from 2014.
With a protective mask, Chiellini scored one of his best goals. In April 2009, with Juventus trailing 1-0 at Chievo Verona, the defender, who had just had nose surgery, wasn’t afraid to head for a ball. Teammate Mauro Camoranesi brought this back to Chiellini with a hoe – and Chiellini threw it under the crossbar with a hard direct shot. Yes, from time to time Chiellini could also be a center forward.
The biggest crisis of his club made him a regular player
Leonardo Bonucci, with whom Chiellini later formed one of the world’s best central defender duos, was still playing for AS Bari in the deepest football province at the time. Regular players at Juventus at the time were the legendary goalie Gianluigi Buffon, Hasan Salihamidzic, current FC Bayern sports director, and Pavel Nedved, today’s vice-president of Juventus. Chiellini came on as a substitute for Nedved in October 2005, his first appearance in a league game in the zebra jersey.
The names of those companions show that Chiellini’s career bridges two eras of football. Those who played back then are often managers now. Other players, such as Juventus striker Dusan Vlahovic or national team colleague Alessandro Bastoni, didn’t even go to school when Chiellini made his Serie A debut.
Incidentally, Chiellini chose Bastoni as his successor. Football-wise there are worlds between the two. Bastoni is technically better, strong in opening the game, which actually doesn’t correspond at all to Chiellini’s idea of the ideal central defender. He even sounded a few years ago that “Guardiolismo” had spoiled Italian defenders. He accused Italian coaches of copying Pep Guardiola’s style too much and neglecting defensive virtues as a result.
“Nowadays defenders know how to distribute the ball, but they can’t mark an opponent,” Chiellini complained. In Bastoni, however, he sees a will that is similar to his own and that could make the Inter Milan professional a new representative of Italy’s great defender school.
Chiellini’s beginnings had not inspired anyone to eulogize. “Initially at Juve it took me time to settle into this team of stars. But little by little I conquered my space », he once recalled in an interview on the club’s own TV channel. Former teammates even described him as shy.
The biggest crisis of all things made him a regular player. In the year of relegation due to the referee bribery scandal in 2006, he stayed at the club and was steeled in the battles of Serie B. Coach Didier Deschamps placed the trained left-back in the center of defense due to a lack of alternatives. This was the birth of Chiellini as we know him. The half-left position in defense – that was his workplace for the next decade and a half.
Preferably against giants like Zlatan Ibrahimovic
There he distinguished himself through his powerful commitment. Physical duels man against man, preferably against giants such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who tried martial arts, were Chiellini’s profession. «Zlatan was my favorite opponent. Even when I arrived in Turin, I wasn’t allowed to show any fear in order to gain respect. On the field we gave each other nothing. But off the field, we value each other extremely,” said Chiellini about Ibrahimovic, with whom he played for a season at Juventus and whom he “supervised” when “Ibra” as an opponent, the jerseys of Inter Milan, AC Milan or the Swedish national team wore.
In the midst of world stars: Giorgio Chiellini in a duel with Milan’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic (left), with whom he gets along well off the field, to his right is his prominent teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.
Chiellini, who was himself described as a “bulldog” by admirers, saw his task as preventing beauty: “As a defender, you enjoy the fact that the attacker you are fighting against does not score a goal. In my early days, I was never asked to play football either. All I was told was give the ball to whoever is closest to you or whoever is furthest away.” He was believed capable of the short pass to the next man, and also the long ball, away from the danger zone. Not more.
The fact that he has become a respectable player with these limited skills, beyond the combative role model, was also due to the trio “BBC” – that was the acronym of the iconic triple chain of Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci and Chiellini. The mix of position-safe Barzagli, game-creating Bonucci and fighter Chiellini was the basis on which Juventus rushed from Scudetto to Scudetto in Serie A. The BBC association was also in two Champions League finals.
In the national team, however, the trio did not always fit together. Barzagli became world champion in 2006, but alongside Fabio Cannavaro, without Chiellini and Bonucci. And when the latter two led Italy to the European title last summer, Barzagli was no longer active.
The setback for the Squadra Azzurra, missing the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, is one of the reasons why Chiellini is now withdrawing. He would have extended the contract with Juventus for another season in order to stay in Serie A for the national team, with a view to the planned trip to Qatar. But after the surprising elimination in the play-off against North Macedonia, he retires early.
“It also gives freedom to the boys, whose wings I’ve trimmed again and again,” Chiellini commented on the double departure from the national team and Juventus. Others have to rebuild the stumbling country selection, others have to drive the rebirth of Juventus – after management mistakes in recent years.
Giorgio Chiellini (2nd from left) and his long-term centre-back partner Leonardo Bonucci carry the trophy for Italy’s European Championship win last summer.
He doesn’t think a European Super League is fundamentally wrong
It is practically certain that Chiellini will one day land in a management position. Chiellini completed his studies in this profession, even earned his doctorate, with a thesis on the management model of Juventus Turin. The hardhead on the pitch is also an academic.
He is already being traded as a talented official. The President of the Italian Football Federation said: “Giorgio has what it takes to become one of the most talented managers in Italy. I’ll take him to me and change the whole system.”
Chiellini already has ideas. He does not consider the European Super League, which Juventus President Andrea Agnelli wanted to introduce, to be fundamentally wrong. “The rules and mentalities in football need to change. In industry, innovations are introduced quickly. In football, they are seen as a threat, not an opportunity,” he said. Chiellini spoke out in favor of new, family-friendly stadiums – an evergreen in Calcio’s catalog of demands. He also thinks a play-off phase to choose the champion is interesting.
Some of the current officials in Calcio should therefore be happy if Chiellini continued his career as a player across the Atlantic – and it would take a while before he could exert any influence as a manager.
