Gianluca Vialli won the Military World Cup in 1987 while on national service – unlike Alessandro Del Piero and Fabio Cannavaro, who were sent off in a defeat to Cyprus in 1995

There is an odd tendency to conflate football with the military. From England fans’ habit of singing songs about the second world war to the seemingly never-ending poppy controversies, there is an idea that football teams are a division of the armed forces. War minus the shooting, as George Orwell put it. Soldiers and footballers are often painted as opposites: soldiers are disciplined, humble and self-sacrificing, while football players are vain, spoiled prima donnas. The idea seems to be that footballers might do a lot better if they were more like soldiers. In fact, some of the best footballers of the last generation have been soldiers.

In Italy, compulsory national service remains on the statute books, although it was gradually reduced in duration from the 1970s onwards and was ultimately suspended completely in 2004. This meant that players such as Paolo Maldini and Roberto Mancini, by then both regular starters in Serie A and for the national team, were obliged to serve a 12-month term in Italy’s armed forces.

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When Maldini and Mancini reported for duty in 1988, it was a big event reported by journalists and followed by football supporters. Roberto Baggio did his national service around the same time. Fabio Galante, Marco Delvecchio, Alessandro Del Piero and Fabio Cannavaro all served together in 1995-96, complete with snappy khaki uniforms and full-on jarhead haircuts.

If you are conjuring up images of Demetrio Albertini digging foxholes and Beppe Signori breaking down and reassembling assault rifles, prepare to be disappointed. The professional footballers called up to do national service did not serve in the military in the conventional sense.

It was clearly not in the interests of the players or their clubs to risk serious injury (or worse) in conventional military duties and the military itself would have been well aware of the risk to its public image if promising young footballers were having their careers curtailed. It was far better to snap a few quick pictures of the lads looking great in their uniforms and then keep them out of harm’s way.

Accordingly, after joining up, professional footballers spent relatively little time in barracks and were allowed to fulfil various other commitments for club and country. Del Piero said of his time in the Bersaglieri (Sharpshooters): “I only pretended to shoot. In my life I’ve only tried shooting once, with clay pigeons: a disaster. I’ll never be a great hunter like Baggio.” Despite being a buddhist, Baggio is known to unwind by taking to the woods to shoot wild boar.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Italy’s army team – including Gianluca Vialli – celebrate winning the 1987 Military World Cup. Photograph: Alberto Sabattini/Italy Photo Press / Offside

The young players’ main contribution was to play for the Italian National Military Team which competed in the World Military Cup, a football competition for national military teams which started in 1946 and currently takes place every two years.

This was not to say that the players didn’t take their national service seriously, Gennaro Olivieri, then coach of the military team, was particularly fond of Del Piero: “Cannavaro was still at the start of his career but Del Piero had already won a Scudetto at Juve, was an Italy international and had scored in the Champions League but he never did anything to distance himself from the group. “I would tell him: ‘Ten minutes and I’ll take you off.’ But after 10 minutes, he would say: ‘Five more minutes, Mister.’ And then: ‘Five more minutes.’ He remained on the field the whole time. He felt the responsibility of making those people happy.”

“We were organising a game in Calabria for a very sick child. Del Piero was in Germany with Juve. I called him. ‘I don’t know if you can make it, but the family of the boy have begged me to tell you they would really appreciate it.’ Ale caught a plane from Germany and joined us. For that I adore him. It’s a memory I will never forget. The military authorities were proud of the behaviour of Ale and his companions. Although they weren’t great soldiers – when they did the salute, they poked themselves in the eye.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gianluca Vialli holds on to the Military World Cup in 1987, two years after his debut for the senior Italy team Photograph: Alberto Sabattini/Italy Photo Press/Offside

Somewhat predictably, Italy is the most successful country in the history of the World Military Cup, winning it eight times, coming second four times and third on three occasions. Their triumph in 1987 must have come as little surprise given Gianluca Vialli and Ciro Ferrara were in the team. What was surprising, however, was the failure of that quartet of Del Piero, Cannavaro, Galante and Delvecchio, bolstered by Nicola Amoruso, Stefano Fiore and Francesco Flachi, to win the tournament in Rome in 1995.

Italy understandably went into the tournament as heavy favourites and began in impressive fashion, beating the Netherlands 3-0, Libya 4-2 and Senegal 8-0. In the quarter-finals they met Cyprus and things seemed to be progressing in a similar manner when Del Piero gave them the lead. However, Cyprus hit back twice to take the score to 2-1, where it stayed.

Even more remarkably, Italy finished the match with just seven men, following the sendings off of Del Piero, Cannavaro, Delvecchio and Marco Piovanelli. In the tunnel after end of the game several Italy players heavily insulted the referee, which led to four of them – Amoruso, Flachi, Fiore and Pierini – being suspended from international football by Fifa.

Given the obscurity of the tournament, details of the match are in short supply so it is difficult to determine what exactly happened. However, the dismissal of the notoriously softly spoken Del Piero – a player who was sent off just twice in his 777 games as a professional – seems particularly incongruous.



Cannavaro and Del Piero did go on to lift the World Cup together in 2006 plus they, together with Delvecchio and Fiore, were only two minutes away from winning Euro 2000. Perhaps the seeds of that success were sown along with a special esprit de corps in those barracks in Naples in 1995? Or perhaps, no matter what some people try to tell you, it’s better not to draw too many parallels between football and the military.



• This article first appeared on The Gentleman Ultra

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