When you think Roberto Baggio, you think of Serie A and the World Cup, you think of his moments of poetic brilliance in the colours of the many teams he represented throughout his career on a Sunday, and the deep blue of Gli Azzurri at three World Cups.
However, the mind doesn’t instantly spring to Baggio and European football, nights under the lights in midweek games across Europe’s finest cathedrals. With most UEFA competitions unavailable to view on TV during the 1980s and 1990s, most of Baggio’s European exploits weren’t broadcast outside of Italy.
It speaks volumes to the fact that he played in 61 official UEFA club competition games, from the Cup Winners’ Cup to the Champions League via the UEFA Cup, but it’s not generally associated with his career in the way the World Cup indelibly is.
Moreover, Baggio scored 31 times across UEFA competitions. And with the great man celebrating his 55th birthday, it’s time to select five of his best.
5. Juventus vs Lokomotiv Moscow, UEFA Cup – September 1993
The first defence of their UEFA Cup title saw Juventus pitted against Lokomotiv Moscow. The tie was as good as done after the first leg as Juve crushed the Russian side 3-0.
Baggio scored a trademark free kick minutes into the second half (which would’ve been also worthy of this list had it been a top ten) to give Juve the lead. Fabrizio Ravanelli added a second before Baggio got his second of the game.
In 1993 Baggio was simply head and shoulders above every player in the world. And yes, this was evident in the fact that he won the Ballon d’Or that year – and comfortably so – but in a post-Marco Van Basten landscape, he really emerged as the game’s premiere player.
This is perhaps illustrated best in Juve’s third of the game. With four minutes left Baggio, positioned on the edge of the Moscow box, attempts to flick the ball past a beleaguered defender after a long ball in his direction.
It doesn’t come off quite as good as Baggio had no doubt hoped, but he sprints to the ball inside the box, wins it, shields it from Moscow’s No.3, glides past him with such nonchalance ease, sends another Moscow defender to the shops with a wonderful shimmy, and slots the ball into the bottom left-hand corner of the goal.
It was a goal of such ease, like an adult playing football against school children, toying with them just for the sake of it.
4. Inter vs Real Madrid, Champions League – November 1998
It was criminal that a player of Baggio’s genius only played in two Champions League seasons, and in both the teams he was a part of were on a downward trajectory.
His first taste of Champions League football came in 1996/97 with Milan at the age of 29. Milan had won the Scudetto under Fabio Capello the season prior, when Baggio formed a strong relationship with George Weah, and the two combined to fire Milan to the title.
Yet Capello left in the summer to take over at Real Madrid. Oscar Tabarez took over, but you felt that despite a squad full of strong names, Milan had just gone over the peak of their powers.
Even so, they should have been more than good enough to top a group containing Porto, Rosenborg and Goteborg. Yet they didn’t, and finished third. Baggio barely played in the six games, and scored only once. His introduction to Europe’s top competition a sour one.
He was back in the competition two years later with Inter, with many expecting a mouth-watering duo of Ronaldo and Baggio to lead the club into the latter stages.
By the time they played Real Madrid at San Siro in the fifth group stage game, Baggio had hardly made a mark in the competition. Moreover, he hadn’t scored in any of the previous four games in the group, and Inter were on the brink of an early exit, but he was to make up for it here.
He came on as a substitute with 23 minutes left and the game at 1-1. There was four left on the clock when Baggio’s pass was redirected into his path on the periphery of the box, and his shot squirmed under Real goalkeeper Bobo Illgner to give Inter the lead.
Four minutes later and with Real trying to equalise, Diego Simeone won the ball in the battle of the Argentines with Fernando Redondo in the middle of the pitch, Simeone took two touches and slid the ball into the feet of Baggio, who was unmarked on the left hand side of the Madrid box.
Baggio raced towards Illgner, faked to shoot, and glided to his left with his right foot before placing the ball into the net with his left in one fluid motion, almost as if he was ice skating. Game thoroughly set and match.
For Baggio, this was the highlight of his Champions League experience. His last game in the tournament came against Man Utd in the quarter final, when he was unable to stop a lop-sided Inter squad from being eliminated.
Four goals in nine matches across two underwhelming seasons hardly does his talent justice.
3. Milan vs Bordeaux, UEFA Cup – March 1996
The first official meeting between two of the game’s greatest ever No.10s: Baggio and Zinedine Zidane.
Milan were among the favourites to win the UEFA Cup that season, owing to their ludicrous level of talent, which included a front pairing of Baggio and Weah. They’d breezed through the earlier rounds, scoring goals for fun and only conceding twice.
They were paired against Bordeaux in the quarter final and despite that squad containing several future World Cup winners in Zidane, Christophe Dugarry and Bixente Lizarazu, most expected Milan to advance.
Stefano Eranio had given Milan the lead at San Siro by the time Baggio, hideously wearing a No.9 shirt, stepped up to take a free kick just outside the Bordeaux box with 15 minutes left.
Given the position of the set piece, most expected Baggio to curl the ball up and over the wall with his instep into the top left-hand corner of Gaetan Huard’s goal. Baggio had other ideas.
Instead, Baggio goes across the wall and into the opposite corner, taking everyone by surprise. The ball careens into the top right-hand corner of Huard’s goal, with the goalkeeper simply too slow to react.
The goal gave Milan a two-goal lead going into the second game in France. But a side featuring Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Billy Costacurta and Marcel Desailly somehow conceded three times, as Milan collapsed. They went out, and Zidane and Bordeaux made it to the final, where they lost to Bayern Munich.
That summer, Juve brought him to Serie A.
2. Juventus vs Paris Saint-Germain, UEFA Cup – April 1993
Two years before Baggio and Weah became a devastating partnership for Milan, they battled it out for a place in the 1993 UEFA Cup final.
The first leg, at the loathed Stadio delle Alpi, didn’t get off to the greatest of starts for The Old Lady. Weah struck first, breaking into behind Juve’s high line and onto an intelligent through ball from David Ginola. The Liberian then picked his spot and guided the ball past Juve stopper Michaelangelo Rampulla.
Baggio then took over not just the game, but the tie.
10 minutes into the second half, Paolo Di Canio came in off the right-hand side and slid a pass into the feet of Fabrizio Ravanelli on the edge of the area. The White Feather teed the ball up for Baggio to strike, and strike he did.
Baggio put his laces through the ball, but also utilised the outside of his foot to generate the necessary bend on the ball to rifle a half-volley into the bottom left-hand corner of Bernard Lama’s goal.
Not content with producing just one moment of magic, Baggio then added another with an exquisite free kick that nestled into the top corner of Lama’s goal to turn the game around. In the return leg in Paris, Baggio scored again to give Juve a 3-1 win on aggregate.
Baggio’s always believed that he was at his physical peak in 1993, and once stated his wish that the 1994 World Cup had been somehow played a year prior. This is weighed out in numbers, as in 1992-93 he played in 43 games in all competitions. The only season he played more was in 1990-91, his first campaign in Turin. After 1992-93 he only ever got past the 40-game mark once more – in 1993-94.
Baggio went on to score twice in the two-legged final against Borussia Dortmund as Juve ran riot. They won 6-1 on aggregate, with Dino Baggio going one better and netting three of the six.
The Baggio boys demolished Dortmund, and the UEFA Cup remains Baggio’s only piece of European silverware.
1. Juventus vs Borussia Dortmund, UEFA Cup – April 1995
Baggio wasn’t done tormenting the German side just yet, but they would’ve been thoroughly sick of the sight of the ponytailed one after this game.
Between 1993 and 1997, these clubs met nearly every season in Europe. There were seven games during that timeframe, but this was the last to feature Baggio.
And how did he ever leave a goodbye present.
Now meeting in the UEFA Cup semi final, the first game had ended in a 2-2 draw at San Siro (this was due to Juve making a stand with the Turin council over the future of the Delle Alpi, and so took several games to San Siro to prove a point). Baggio had scored a penalty after Stefan Reuter had given Dortmund an early lead.
The game was delicately poised for the return in Germany. Juve defender Sergio Porrini headed home Baggio’s corner to give Juve the lead. Former Juve defender Julio Cesar (no, not that one) scored from a free kick to level the tie.
Cue a Baggio masterpiece, his final one in black-and-white.
Juve won a free-kick in the 31st minute after Rene Tretschok hacked down Angelo Di Livio.
Throughout the course of his career Baggio had various ways of taking free-kicks. One method was to simply take a step or two and hit the ball with his instep, like in the aforementioned goal against Bordeaux.
Another technique, one that he used chiefly during his time at Juve, was to run at the ball as if he was going to hit it with his laces but turn his foot at the last second and use his instep. This would result in the ball bending at pace towards bewildering goalkeepers.
He called on this technique against Dortmund. As he hit the ball it arched majestically, travelling at pace past Stefan Klos and into his top right-hand corner. The German keeper barely moved as the ball clipped the underside of the crossbar and crashed into the net.
It was a goal of violent beauty, arguably his greatest ever free kick, let alone his best in European competition.
Juventus went on to win the game 2-1 and made it to their second UEFA Cup final in three seasons, where they lost to Parma and were denied a treble. It was to be Baggio’s last real moment of genius for the Bianconeri, as he departed months later to join Milan.
Worthy mentions: Juventus vs Barcelona, Cup Winners’ Cup – April 1991; Milan vs Strasbourg, UEFA Cup – November 1995.