One of the most rocky defenders that I have ever seen. In his role is not expressly required to be equipped with a good foot, but he was an exception, sometimes he like to score. 100% Neapolitan, twenty years of football career: two teams that have made him among the bigs, a decade in Naples, a team in which he was a teammate of a certain Diego Armando Maradona, the next ten years, however, is transferred to the city of Mole Antonelliana, to F.C. Juventus. Ciro at club level was able to win everything, his first two championships have something incredible, with the blue shirt of Naples, dragged by the Pibe de oro in a legendary challenge managing to oust the most important clubs of Italy from the throne. In those years Italy was a superpower of European football, most of the champions from all over the world were competing going to play there.
His challenge with the Neapolitan team has been made even more legendary by the fact of having won a UEFA Cup. A defense fortress, a leader with huge charisma, a person who has always appeared very nice, with a joke lover that always had one ready, especially for his teammates. Winner of several trophies, the beauty of 7 scudetti, in addition to the two already mentioned with the blue shirt of Napoli, 5 with Juventus, an Italian cup each with the two clubs, 5 Italian Supercups, of which 4 with the old lady and a with the Neapolitans. The international trophy is also quite well supplied, besides the UEFA Cup won with SSC Napoli in '88/'89 are added those won with the jersey of Juventus, a UEFA Super Cup, an Intertoto Cup, a Champions League and the consequent Intercontinental Cup.
In the Champions League final played in Rome in 1996, he was one of the penalties shooters who, realizing his shot from 11 meters, brought to the top of the Italian football for the umpteenth time in those unforgettable years. One of the qualities most appreciated by his teammates was that of being a master in team-building, not too many players have so much energy and vitality. With his National team, despite being a great defender in those years the competition was very hardened, when he was called in, he injured himself, but he did not enjoy total esteem by the numerous national coaches, who often preferred other players to him, from 1987 to 2000 its presences in the Italian national team are only fifty. An average of 4 games per year is not very high for a champion of his caliber.
A striking example of his enviable sportiness, is that which saw him protagonist in leaving the captain band of Napoli in the hands of a teammate, he claimed that the true leader was Diego Armando Maradona and then I hand him the reins of the team, when El Pibe de Oro left the Campania instead gladly put the band to his arm. He left the Neapolitan team because the company needed money and therefore reluctantly, chose a team where he could continue to win, that of Turin, he said he was always very satisfied in having made that choice, arguing that the Piedmontese has always been a very South City, because of the many people who have always gone to the North to look for luck in the work field.
His proverbial pleasantness has always been felt to everyone, as for example, as when he was Ibrahimovic's team-mate, for one year, his last as a footballer.
Once he took his son to the Juventus locker room, there was Zlatan, who told to the boy: Your dad played with Maradona, but I'm stronger than Diego. Ciro answered him like that: Ibra, give me a break!
Maradona has expressed many times his esteem for this great leader of the locker room:
Once I told him he was the best defender in the world. I do not know if it was true, but I felt it like that. I love him so much... The best friend that I left in Naples.
And he was not the only one to make honey declarations for him, here is another example, this time of a rival, Zbigniew Boniek who said of him:
Always focused, it was sticky like the glue.
Here's what Ciro thinks of his successes with Napoli's blue shirt and one in particular:
Surely, one of the best memories is linked to the final return of the UEFA Cup 1988-89. We played in Stuttgart, in the house of a very strong team and in front of many emigrants. We scored 3-3 and I also scored a goal; we won the Cup and gave our countrymen great joy. But I can not forget the scudetto won with Napoli in 1987, an emotion perhaps unrepeatable, because it was the first and because I conquered it in my city. The nice thing when you get a result is to celebrate! And we celebrated for a long time! I have won several championships, but for me it remains the most important memory, just for how that victory was lived, for the joy, the happiness with which that success was received. The newspapers described him as the ransom of Naples. In fact, going to the Juventus, Milan and Inter fields and dictating the law was a great satisfaction for the whole city.
The hunger to win for Juve has always been at the highest levels, but has become used too well in the national field, as reflected in his words:
Being able to win the Champions Cup is very important for the career of any player, moreover, as I said, here in Turin the euphoria for the trophy passes quickly enough: the dream of the Bianconeri fans is always the cup, for this I am happy to having been part of that group.
Unfortunately, the defenders do not score very much and it therefore becomes difficult to find appropriate images for these kind of champions that unfortunately, sometimes go unnoticed. So I decided to leave you with two videos, in the first one, a Juventus best of, in the second instead, his goodbye to football in a Napoli-Juventus challenge at San Paolo Stadium, all to see again! Enjoy the videos!
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