Giorgio Chinaglia

Giorgio Chinaglia

Personal information
Full name	Giorgio Chinaglia
Date of birth	January 24, 1947 (1947-01-24)
Place of birth	Carrara, Italy
Playing position	Striker
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1964–1966	Swansea Town	6	(1)
1966–1967	Massese	32	(5)
1967–1969	Internapoli	66	(24)
1969–1976	Lazio	209	(98)
1976–1983	New York Cosmos	213	(193)
1981-1982	New York Cosmos (indoor)	17	(35)
1984-1985	New York Cosmos (indoor)	4	(3)
National team
1972–1974	Italy	14	(4)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Giorgio Chinaglia (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒordʒo kiˈnaʎʎa]; born January 24, 1947) is a former football striker from Italy. He grew up and played his early football in Cardiff, Wales and began his career with Swansea Town in 1964. He later returned to Italy to play for Massese, Internapoli and S.S. Lazio in 1969. He played international football for Italy, including two appearances at the 1974 FIFA World Cup.

In 1976, Chinaglia left Lazio to sign with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. With the Cosmos team that also featured Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer, Chinaglia won four league titles, and retired in 1983 with NASL's all-time leading scorer with 243 goals.

In 2000, Chinaglia was inducted into the United States National Soccer Hall of Fame and was named the greatest player in Lazio's history during the club's centenary celebrations.

Early years in Wales

Chinaglia was born in Carrara, Tuscany in 1947, but in 1955, he moved to Cardiff, Wales with his father Mario, mother Giovanna and his sister Rita, because of unemployment in Italy following World War II. Because his family was poor, Chinaglia said, "All four of us lived in one room," he says, "My father was an ironworker and it was tough. I used to take the milk left on people's porches and drink it for breakfast."

At age 13, by which time his father had bought an Italian restaurant in Cardiff, Chinaglia was spotted scoring a hat trick for Cardiff Schools, and joined Swansea Town in the Football League Third Division as an apprentice in 1962.

Chinaglia made his senior debut for Swansea in October 1964 at Rotherham United, with his League debut following in February. His final Swans appearance was in March 1966, coming on as a substitute against Brentford.

With Swansea, Chinaglia won the 1965 West Wales Senior Cup, scoring in the 3–0 victory in the final against Llanelli, and represented the Swansea Senior Association Football League in 1964 in a representative match against the Birmingham & District Works Football Association.

Chinaglia said that he hated to train, and, "I never felt satisfied. But I've always been that way, I guess. When I was eight, I played soccer with kids 12 and 13. I always looked for older kids. What was the sense of doing anything on your own level?" Chinaglia was often late to training and had taken to drinking, gambling and womanizing, and with no British club interested in signing him, Swansea allowed him to return to Italy on a free transfer.

Club career in Italy

Serie C

In 1966, because of the lack of interest from British clubs and his compulsory Italian military service, Chinaglia, then age 19, and his family moved back to Carrara. He credited the military requirement with getting his career on track, saying, "Otherwise, I'd probably still be in Wales , slogging it out in the mud and drinking ale. The Italian army has a special regiment for soccer players, so all I did in the service was to train all day, and when my club had a game, get a pass."

Chinaglia was banned from playing in Serie A, the top division, for three years because he had played professionally outside of Italy, and his father fixed him up with Massese, a Serie C club in Massa near his home.

The following season, he joined another Serie C club, Internapoli in Naples, where he played two seasons and scored 26 goals in 66 matches.

Lazio

He scored 98 goals for Lazio in 209 appearances.

National team career

Chinaglia's play with Lazio earned him a place on head coach Ferruccio Valcareggi's shortlist for the Italy squad in the 1970 FIFA World Cup. He did not make the final 22-man squad, but Valcareggi took him to Mexico for experience.

In 1971, after Lazio were demoted to Serie B, Chinaglia became the first Italian national team player in modern history to be selected from a second-tier division club.

In 1973, Chinaglia returned to England with the Azzurri to face England in a friendly match. In the 86th minute, Chinaglia beat English defender Bobby Moore and sent in a cross that was tapped in by Fabio Capello, helping Italy to its first win over England at Wembley Stadium.

Chinaglia was selected for Italy's squad at the 1974 FIFA World Cup and played in two matches at the tournament. However, after he was substituted in a group match against Haiti, he argued with and cursed at head coach Valcareggi, additionally making an obscene gesture, and storming into the dressing room where he broke water bottles.

He was ostracized by his teammates and the media, and the incident effectively ended his national team career with 14 caps and 4 goals.

Career with the Cosmos

In 1976, Chinaglia moved to the NASL and the New York Cosmos. While many foreign stars would play in the NASL (Pelé being the greatest example), Chinaglia was probably the first great player to leave his original team for the NASL while still in the prime of his career. This is evident with the great success he had in the NASL, scoring 242 goals in 254 games (including regular season and playoff competition). He led the NASL in scoring four times and would be the league's all-time leading scorer. Chinaglia would win the NASL Most Valuable Player Award in 1981.

As of May 1979 he was the highest goalscorer amongst active players in the NASL, and was NASL top scorer in 1976 and 1978.

In 2000 he was inducted into the U.S.A. National Soccer Hall of Fame.

Later life

He currently co-hosts a daily soccer talk show with Charlie Stilatano, The Football Show, from 0700 to 0900 on Sirius Satellite Radio.

In 1979 Chinaglia became a naturalized American citizen, telling New York Times reporter Diane Ackerman that he proudly kept his citizenship papers in his locker next to his bottle of Chivas Regal.

Arrest warrant

Chinaglia was named as one of nine people for whom arrest warrants had been issued on Friday 13 October 2006 following an extortion probe linked to shares in his former club Lazio.

Followup to Arrest warrant

Authorities arrested seven suspects related to an illegal attempt to purchase the Lazio football club with laundered funds. The laundered funds are believed to be part of the activities of the Casalesi clan, a group of the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate. Chinaglia was not among those arrested and is believed to still be in hiding in the US dating back to the issuance of the original warrant.