The Forgotten forward
Andrea Carnevale looked to the sky for explanation.
Nothing in the celestial world could provide an answer.
Summoned to the sidelines, his face a picture of exaggerated anguish as if a great tragedy had befallen him.
Substituted with a quarter of an hour remaining, the score still frustratingly blank.
In a shifting of the stars his replacement Salvatore Schillaci had been on the pitch for just three minutes when he headed Italy’s winner.
As Carnevale ruefully contemplated his two first half misses on the bench, the focus rapidly shifted to Schillaci’s eyes bulging, arms flailing, disbelieving celebration.
Gianluca Vialli, who had also been wasteful in spurning a couple of presentable opportunities, produced a deep, looping cross from the right wing.
The Sicilian attacker hung in the air as if frozen momentarily in time, perfectly placed between two defenders, swivelling his neck, and directing the ball high into the net with his head.
Rome’s Stadio Olimpico shook with an apoplectic outburst of delight.
The 1990 World Cup hosts and favourites had defeated Austria in their first group match and a new national hero crowned.
Among an exceptionally talented group of forwards one avenue of opportunity opened and another all but vanished. Individual joy and despair interlinked in the most selfish of all football positions. Judgement cast in the blink of an eye, goals ruled the only determining factor in success or failure with nothing in between.
Although Italy coach Azeglio Vicini started Carnevale – a two time Scudetto winner with Napoli – for the next group game against the USA, his international career was all but over.
Already an unpopular choice to start alongside Sampdoria’s Vialli, the 29-year-old lasted just 51 minutes before Schillaci replaced him. It was his last involvement with the Azzurri.
Never a regular goalscorer with his club, the Lazio native only received his first cap in April 1989, striking twice in consecutive four goal friendly routs of Hungary and Bulgaria in the lead up to the World Cup. Overshadowed by the established Vialli and the emergence of dazzling young playmaker Roberto Baggio, Carnevale could not capitalise on his short window to shine, dropping from top billing to bench warmer all in the space of two matches.
Samp attacker Roberto Mancini didn’t even have the luxury of a single second on the pitch in the entire competition, not even in the third place play-off with England.
Club team-mate Vialli had been expected to lead Italy to glory on home turf, yet the flamboyantly gifted forward drew a blank against Austria and hit the post with a badly placed penalty in an underwhelming victory over the USA. Roma midfielder Giuseppe Giannini lashed home the winner after a clever Vialli dummy but it was a forgettable display from the 25-year-old from Cremona.
A tsunami of expectation, in unrelenting waves had surrounded Samp’s leading man before the tournament began. Weighed down by an almost unbearable pressure to deliver, Vialli was caught up in the flow of hysteria which undoubtedly affected his performances.
Instead, Juventus forward Schillaci embarked on a sustained run of scoring which elevated the Azzurri to the semi-finals. In what represented the zenith of his career, he netted six times and claimed the tournament’s Golden Boot. His delirious celebrations and exaggerated protestations both became trademarks as the Palermo born attacker became an unlikely protagonist in one of the most underappreciated tournaments in World Cup history.
The clamour for the inclusion of brilliant young fantasista Baggio subsided when Vicini finally bowed to public opinion and started the 23-year-old in the third and final group game. Vialli was left out as Baggio not only lived up to the hype but scored one of the greatest goals in World Cup history, slaloming through the Czechoslovakia defence like a trapeze artist on a mission. Immortalized in hysterical commentaries and celebrated across Italy and beyond with frenzied gusto, it earned Baggio a starting role in the round of 16. Vicini again opted to controversially bench Vialli, who despite his lacklustre form was still considered an automatic first choice by fans and pundits alike.
Baggio and substitute Aldo Serena – the sixth striker in the squad – combined for Schillaci to loop an unstoppable shot high into the net as Uruguay held out until the 65th minute. Inter’s Serena – who was frequently deployed as an effective backup – displayed his adeptness in the air with a well placed header to seal a place in the quarter-final.
The Baggio-Schillaci partnership flourished and the pair were again entrusted to propel the Azzurri into the semi-final.
Fortune again favoured the tournament’s most deadly forward as Schillaci pounced when Ireland goalkeeper Pat Bonner parried Roberto Donadoni’s fierce piledriver to send the Italy a step closer to the promised land.
Carnevale and Mancini again watched as distant spectators at the Stadio San Paolo in Naples.
Vialli was restored to partner Schillaci in the last four showdown with Argentina despite calls for Baggio to retain his starting place. Napoli’s Diego Maradona rather predictably stole the show.
A simmering atmosphere – stoked by Maradona suggesting Neapolitans should side with Argentina after being marginalised and discriminated against in their own country – set the scene for a dramatic, unforgettable night.
The semi-final began promisingly as both starting strikers were involved in Italy’s opener. Schillaci followed up to clumsily force the ball over the line after Vialli had a volley blocked. Atalanta’s Claudio Caniggia equalised when Inter goalkeeper Walter Zenga raced from his line and flapped into thin air as the home favourites felt the tension bear down on them in their first match of the tournament away from Rome.
Although Baggio and Serena both came off the bench neither could make a significant impact as Argentina and Maradona somehow prevailed on penalties.
The third place play-off was nothing more than an afterthought. In a pointless match Italy claimed a 2-1 victory, notable only for Baggio returning alongside Schillaci and both scoring with the latter clinching the competition’s leading scorer prize from the penalty spot at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari.
Despite falling short of their ultimate objective, the Azzurri’s thrilling run to the last four created an entire generation of Italian football fans from Glasgow to Dublin, Belfast to London and throughout Britain and Ireland.
As a naive, impressionable teenager I foolishly believed I was enduring the same panoply of emotions as the players. Jumping around wildly, fist pumping and gesticulating crazily when Schillaci scored, distraught when my favourite player Vialli underperformed and collapsing to the floor with joy attempting to emulate Baggio’s iconic celebration.
While most retrospectives on Italia 90 rightly feature Schillaci’s incredible scoring sequence and Baggio’s epic goal, I have never forgotten Carnevale’s pained, deliberate gesture of distress. In a split second his World Cup aspirations shattered leading to a theatrical but genuine outpouring of emotion.
His crestfallen glance to the heavens, unnoticed and dismissed by many, stayed with me for years and even now remains as a snapshot of unfeigned disappointment in the often cruel world of changing football fates.
@SKasiewicz