Salvatore Bagni

Salvatore Bagni

Personal information
Full name	Salvatore Bagni
Date of birth	(1956-09-25) 25 September 1956
Place of birth	Correggio, Italy
Height
Position(s)	Central midfielder
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1975–1977	Carpi	61	(23)
1977–1981	Perugia	109	(24)
1981–1984	Inter	82	(12)
1984–1988	Napoli	129	(12)
1988–1989	Avellino	23	(2)
Total		404	(73)
International career
1981–1987	Italy	41	(5)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Salvatore Bagni (born 25 September 1956 in Correggio) is a former Italian footballer who mainly played as a central midfielder. He currently works as a sporting director.

Playing career

Club

Bagni began his career with Serie D club Carpi (1975-77), later playing with Serie A side Perugia (1977-1981), before moving to Italian giants Inter (1981-84), where he won the Coppa Italia in 1982.

Bagni is best remembered for his period at Napoli (1984-88), where he won a scudetto in 1987, the first of two won by Napoli in its history.

He later played for Serie B side Avellino for a season (1988-89) before retiring. In total, he scored 52 goals in Serie A.

International

Bagni played for the Italy national under-21 football team between 1978 and 1980, scoring 5 goals in 12 appearances, including a hat-trick against Greece. With the under-21 side, he also took part at two UEFA European Under-21 Championships (1978 and 1980), and also at the 1984 Summer Olympics, where Italy finished in fourth place after reaching the semi-final.

Bagni later made 41 appearances for the senior Italy national football team between 1981 and 1987, scoring five goals. He made his senior international debut on 6 January 1981, in the 1980 Mundialito in Montevideo, in a 1-1 draw against the Netherlands. He scored his first goal for Italy on 4 February 1984, in a 5-0 victory over Mexico, after only 20 seconds; for 29 years, this was the fastest goal ever scored by an Italian player at international level, until his record was beaten by Emanuele Giaccherini's goal against Haiti in 2013. He was part of the Italian 1986 FIFA World Cup squad under manager Enzo Bearzot, wearing the number-10 shirt.

Style of play

A generous, hard-working team-player, Bagni was a tenacious, hard-tackling player, with good technique, who was deployed as central midfielder throughout most of his career, although he also had a tendency to commit aggressive and reckless challenges, which earned him the nickname "The Warrior". He also attracked controversy for his behaviour during his time at Napoli, when he made an offensive gesture in a match against rival club Roma towards the opposition fans, even though the two sets of fans had formed a friendship at the time, thus ruining the relationship between the two clubs. He was also capable of playing as a winger and as a forward, positions which he often occupied in his early career, when he first made his break-through in Italian football.

Honours

Club

F.C. Internazionale Milano

• Coppa Italia: 1981–82

S.S.C. Napoli

• Serie A: 1986–87
• Coppa Italia: 1986–87

External links

• FootballPlus profile