Roberto Baggio: Italy’s artist who was more than one penalty

Roberto Baggio was one of those artists of Italian football who could turn a match with the ball at his feet. Because of his ponytail, he was called “Il Divin Codino”, or “the Divine Ponytail”. In 1993 he won both the Ballon d’Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award³. He scored 27 goals in 56 matches for Italy, and scored at all three World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 1998²⁶⁷⁸. But the moment the world remembers most is the penalty in the 1994 final that went over the bar⁵.

Early life and start

Baggio was born on 18 February 1967 in Caldogno, a town near Vicenza in northern Italy³. He began at Vicenza in the third tier and scored 12 goals in 29 league matches in 1984-85¹.

Club career

In 1985 he moved to Fiorentina, where he played his first Serie A match³. He stood out with 15 league goals in 1988-89 and 17 in 1989-90¹. Fiorentina lost the 1990 UEFA Cup final to Juventus, and Baggio then moved to the same rivals⁴. Juventus paid £8 million for him, then the world’s highest transfer fee. Fiorentina supporters took to the streets in Florence over the deal, and 50 people were injured in the riots⁹.

At Juventus he scored 78 goals in 141 league matches. His best season was 1992-93: 21 league goals, and two goals at Dortmund in the first leg of the UEFA Cup final. Juventus won the trophy 6-1 on aggregate¹⁴. He won the Ballon d’Or that year, the third Italian to do so³.

In 1995 he moved to AC Milan. In 1997-98 he revived his career at Bologna with 22 league goals. After a spell at Inter Milan, he spent his last four seasons at Brescia. On 14 March 2004 he scored his 200th Serie A goal, against Parma, and he retired in May 2004⁴. He scored 205 goals in Serie A in all¹.

International career

Baggio played his first match for Italy on 16 November 1988². At the 1990 World Cup he scored against Czechoslovakia and England, and Italy finished third⁶.

The 1994 World Cup in the United States was his tournament. All five of his goals came in the knockout stage. Against Nigeria, Italy were a goal behind and down to ten men after Zola’s red card. Baggio equalised in the final minutes and won the match with a penalty in extra time. He also scored the decisive goal in the quarter-final against Spain and both goals in the semi-final against Bulgaria⁵⁷.

On 17 July 1994, the final against Brazil at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena finished 0-0 after extra time. In the penalty shoot-out Brazil led 3-2 when Baggio stepped up to take Italy’s last kick, and the ball went over the bar⁷. According to a FIFA article, Baggio later said it was “a wound that never heals”, and that if he could erase one moment from his career, it would be this one⁵.

In 1998 he scored against Chile and Austria. In the quarter-final shoot-out against France he scored his kick, but Italy lost 4-3⁸. His last match for Italy was on 28 April 2004².

Style of play

Baggio was a creative forward who played behind the striker, scoring himself and setting up others³. He was a free-kick specialist: three of the five best goals UEFA picked from his European matches were free kicks⁴. He kept scoring even at relatively small clubs such as Bologna and Brescia¹.

Statistics

The club figures cover league matches only and are taken from the season-by-season records of the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF). The Italy figures are from the RSSSF list of national team players. Both were accessed on 20 October 2026¹².

Honours

• Ballon d’Or: 1993 [3]
• FIFA World Player of the Year: 1993 [3]
• Italian Serie A: twice [3]
• Italian Cup (Coppa Italia): once [3]
• UEFA Cup: 1993 [3][4]
• World Cup: runner-up in 1994, third place in 1990 [6][7]
• Italian Football Hall of Fame: 2011 [3]

Legacy

In the 2026 RSSSF list, Baggio is joint fourth with Alessandro Del Piero among Italy’s top scorers². The Pasadena penalty is part of his story, but the goals that took Italy to the final in the same tournament were also his⁷.