Classic Calciatore
Riccardo Zampagna - The Unlikely Bomber
CLASSIC CALCIATORE
RICCARDO ZAMPAGNA - THE UNLIKELY BOMBER
Sometimes there are calciatori that if you didn’t see them on the pitch, you never would think they were actually professional calciatori. As his nicknames can attest - “Tappezziere” (Upholsterer), “L’ignorante del gol” (The uncultured goalscorer), and “Bifolco” (country bumpkin) - Riccardo Zampagna is one of those.
Born in the Umbrian city of Terni, an industrial city known as “Steel City” and the “Manchester of Italy”, a large portion of the population winds up working in the steel mills. Zampagna from birth had a passion for the local club, Ternana, and attended matches in the curva. He also had a passion for playing football, and played at an amateur level dreaming of making it as a professional. However, as time passed, and he grew older, he knew that dream was waning, and decided to get a job working for an upholsterer (hence the Tappezziere nickname). At the age of 22, when many players were already making their Serie A debut, Zampagna got the call from Serie D club Pontevecchio, and while it was still only what was the 5th level of Italian football at the time, Zampagna decided to chase his dream.
A good season in Serie D earned him a move to the professional level, and after impressing in Serie C2 (4th division) and moving to Serie C1 (3rd division) with Arezzo, he was spotted by Walter Sabatini, a name you may recognize as one of the best talent scouts in Italy, who at the time was working for Luciano Gaucci’s Perugia and Catania. Zampagna spent more seasons in Serie C1 before being called to Perugia for their summer preseason training in 2000. By Zampagna’s own admission, this was the worst part of his career, because even though Perugia played in Serie A, they were Ternana’s rivals, and he hated putting on the Perugia shirt. After 4 appearances for Perugia in the Intertoto Cup and Coppa Italia in August, he was sold to Serie B side Cosenza.
In Serie B, Zampagna started to click as a footballer and started scoring goals. Big and burly in the classic center-forward/#9 mold (a centravanti di peso as they would say in Italy), Zampagna was not the typical target man as he combined that physique with shockingly exceptional technique, and would score goals that if scored today by Messi or Ronaldo, would get 30 billion views on YouTube. After a great season with Messina where he scored 19 goals, Zampagna earned his dream move in the 2003/2004 season - Messina sold half his rights (the co-ownership days) to Ternana, and Zampagna would fulfill his childhood dream.
For context and as an aside, the 2003/2004 Serie B season was different due to the Caso Catania (that’s another story for another day, but Serie B was increased to 24 teams and Fiorentina were readmitted on “sporting merit”, skipping Serie C1 entirely). As the FIGC had imposed a reorganization of the divisions, the 2004/2005 season would see Serie A increased to 20 clubs from 18. As such, Serie B gained 5 automatic promotion places plus the 6th placed club would play the 4th from last club in Serie A 2003/2004 in a intra-divisional promotion/relegation playoff. Because of this, many Serie B clubs looked to take advantage and bolster their chances of promotion.
Ternana was one of those clubs, and acquiring Zampagna meant trying to reach Serie A. After a brilliant season from Zampagna with 21 goals and Ternana frequently in the promotion places, their form dipped and they wound up missing out on the 6th place playoff spot by 4 points. By Zampagna’s own admission, that would’ve been a dream scenario as the 4th to last club in Serie A was Perugia, so that would’ve set up a Perugia-Ternana derby to get into Serie A (instead, Fiorentina defeated Perugia and made a triumphant return to Serie A after bankruptcy).
That summer, due to the co-ownership system, Messina and Ternana went to a blind auction to acquire Zampagna’s services. Messina, newly-promoted to Serie A, won the auction slightly, removing Zampagna from his dream scenario. In a recent interview Zampagna stated that he tried until the first minute of the first match in Serie A to convince Messina to send him back to Ternana. Even though he had never played in the top level of Serie A, for Zampagna playing for Ternana was the top level (and unfortunately for him, he would never return).
In the end, Zampagna stayed at Messina and at 30 years old was making his Serie A debut leading the Messina frontline. From here this is where the legend of Zampagna starts to take off - Against Roma in the second match of the season, he was sent clear through on goal late in the match with the score deadlocked at 3-3. Instead of doing the easy thing and slotting home a simple finish, he decides to lob the ball over Roma goalkeeper Ivan Pelizzoli, who is a 6′ 6″ giant, and scores his first goal in Serie A and Messina’s 4th goal in a historic win. From there, more great goals followed - a diving header vs Milan at the San Siro, a turn and finish vs Juventus among them - and he finished the campaign on 12 goals.
From Messina, Zampagna moved to Atalanta (a more provincial Atalanta than the one you see today), where he continued his highlight reel of goals and cemented his place in the hearts of Atalanta fans and became a Serie A cult icon. After reaching the highest level against all odds, he finished his career in B and Lega Pro. After his career he tried his hand at management, opened a tabaccheria, and started his own youth academy. Currently he has another dream job - commenting on Ternana matches for Ternana’s exclusive channel, and he’s definitely enjoyed himself this season as Ternana have earned promotion to Serie B after a dominating season.
In a calcio world where there are more and more egocentric and social-media obsessed calciatori that care about the expensive cars more than their performances on the pitch, we need more people like Riccardo Zampagna.
Here is a video of Zampagna’s greatest goals, the only sin being that they weren’t scored in the social media era: