Roberto Baggio

Robert Baggio got married to Adreina Fabbi in the year 1989 after having been in a relationship for a long time. The couple has three children: a daughter, Valentina, and two sons, Mattia and Leonardo.

Although Baggio was born a Catholic; he became a practicing Buddhist in 1985 after recovering from an injury that could have ruined his career as a footballer.

Roberto Baggio was born on 18 February 1967, in Caldogno, Veneto, Italy, to Florindo Baggio and Matilde Maggio. He was sixth of the eight children in the family.

Roberto Baggio skills as a footballer of rare talent were noticed early on. When Baggio was only nine years old, he was picked up by his local club Caldogno to be a part of the youth team at the club and in a matter of two years he established himself as prodigious talent who could score a lot of goals.

He was bought by the club Vicenza when he was 13 years old for a sum of £300 and he quickly went through the ranks to make his way into the main squad in the year 1983. During the next two years Baggio showed enough talent as a forward to generate interests from the bigger clubs in Italy.

Fiorentina, the Florence based club, expressed interested in acquiring Robert Baggio following his exploits in the lower division and even though he suffered a career threatening injury, the club took care of the medical expenses as they completed the transfer in 1985 for £1.5 million. Baggio went on to play for Fiorentina for five seasons, scoring 39 goals in 94 appearances and became a legend at the club.

In 1990, two years after Roberto Baggio had made his international debut for Italy, Juventus—one of Italy’s biggest clubs—bought him for a then world record fee of £8 million. The transfer was an acrimonious one as riots broke out in Florence due to the anger among Fiorentina fans.

Roberto Baggio played for Juventus for five seasons and during that period he scored 115 goals for the club in a total of 200 appearances. During his stint with the club, Baggio helped them in winning the UEFA Cup in the year 1993.

In the year 1990, Robert Baggio made his first appearance in the World Cup for Italy and although he was not a regular starter; he impressed everyone as he scored two goals, one of which was a wondrous strike against Czechoslovakia.

In the 1994 World Cup in USA, Baggio was Italy’s biggest star and found the net five times as he led the team to the final. He missed the decisive penalty in the penalty shootout that saw Italy lose the final to Brazil.

In 1993, he was named FIFA World Player of the Year and also won the European Footballer of the Year award.

In 1994, he was listed fourth in the FIFA Player of the Century internet poll.

In 2002, he was selected in the FIFA World Cup Dream Team.

In 2004, Football legend Pele chose him in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.