Roberto Baggio’s catalogue of goals is unparalleled in the history of the Italian game. In a 22-year playing career, Il Divin Codino produced an eclectic mix of world-class goals. 

Most of the classics are well known by now: the two-touch masterpiece for Brescia against Juventus in 2001 that deserves placement in art galleries the world over, the mazy dribble for Fiorentina against Napoli in Diego’s backyard in 1989, the goal against Czechoslovakia at Italia ’90 that signalled his arrival on the world stage and the collection of sumptuous free-kicks all play a huge role in defining the aura of Baggio.

But what about the hidden gems within the back catalogue? Those that are less well-known, but equally as brilliant? Destination Calcio takes a look at five of his more under-appreciated treats.

Atalanta vs Fiorentina, Serie A — March 1989

Baggio was now really finding his stride as a player. In his third season in Florence and mostly recovered from his second harrowing ACL injury, Baggio was now coach Sven-Goran Eriksson’s main weapon in the club’s attempts to break into the upper echelons of the league.

This two-touch goal away to Atalanta highlights the fleet-footedness of the younger Baggio. The way in which he meets the loose ball first before the defender, nudging it past him with a single touch on the periphery of the box while also teeing up the shot in the same movement is glorious. His second touch is merely to bend the ball into the bottom corner of the net, giving the goalkeeper zero chance.

Eriksson only worked with Baggio for two years, yet still saw enough genius to consider him the greatest player he ever coached. Considering the quality of players he worked with over the course of his career, that’s quite the statement.

Bologna vs Milan, Serie A — April 1998

Baggio scored two in this game, but it’s the first that makes the list. 

The two goals against Milan were especially enjoyable for Baggio, considering Milan had discarded him the previous summer. Fabio Capello had returned to Milan ahead of the 1997-98 season and told Baggio in no uncertain terms that his time at San Siro was over and, with France ’98 looming on the horizon, a new club needed to be found.

A move to Parma broke down due to Carlo Ancelotti vetoing the move (something he would later come to regret), and so Baggio ended up at Bologna. The end result was the most productive season of his career: 22 Serie A goals.

Baggio formed a strong partnership with lanky Swede Kennet Andersson, and the pair combined wonderfully here against Milan. With only half an hour left on the clock, Andersson controlled a fizzed pass on the periphery of the Milan box and laid it off to the close-by Baggio. Now Swarmed by Demetrio Albertini, Marcel Desailly and Dario Smoje, Baggio returned the ball to Andersson and ghosted into the penalty box.

Andersson lobbed a somewhat hopeful high ball into his direction and, with Smoje in pursuit, Baggio had little chance to get a shot off. With the ball dropping from the Bolognese sky, Baggio wrapped his foot around the Croatian defender’s leg, controlled the ball with a single touch, pulled it in his direction and poked the ball past Milan stopper Sebastiano Rossi. Baggio would add a second from the penalty spot in a 3-0 win, gaining some measure of retribution.

The camera panned to a disgruntled Capello, sitting in the Rossoneri dugout, no doubt contemplating why he decided to let Baggio go. 

Milan vs Strasbourg, UEFA Cup — November 1995

This banger of a goal arrived during happier times between Baggio and Capello. The Divine One had just been signed by Milan after Juventus decided they wanted to go in a younger direction in the shape of Alessandro Del Piero in the summer of 1995, and so Silvio Berlusconi paid £6.8m to bring Baggio to San Siro, five years after last trying.

With Milan’s stranglehold of the Italian game broken by Baggio and Juve in 1994-95, Baggio found himself playing in the UEFA Cup for a fourth consecutive season. Milan’s star-studded squad were considered the favourites to win the trophy, and after seeing off Polish side Zaglebie Lubin with ease in the first round, Strasbourg were next in the second.

The first leg had finished 1-0 to Milan in France, and Baggio secured qualification to the third round with two goals at San Siro, with one of them making this list. Receiving a long diagonal pass from Zvonimir Boban, Baggio ghosted in behind the Strasbourg defender and, with the goal now at an acute angle, he hit a marvellous first-time volley with his instep, almost passing the ball into the net from the right-hand side of the box.

Baggio blew kisses in Boban’s direction, acknowledging the brilliance of the pass from the majestical Croat. Milan’s journey ended at the quarter final stage, where they got knocked out by Bordeaux, which contained a then-unknown Frenchman called Zinedine Zidane.

Italy vs Mexico, friendly — January 1993

These two would meet at USA ’94 18 months later in a dire match with very little quality. This wasn’t the case when the pair met in a 1993 friendly at the Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence.

Baggio was in the form of his life, and would win the Ballon d’Or by year’s end. Italy were firmly in the Arrigo Sacchi era, and things hadn’t gone completely sour between Sacchi and Baggio just yet. For now, Baggio was still the conductor for the Azzurri. 

In the 54th minute, right-back Moreno Mannini received a pass on the right-hand side just inside the Mexican half. Mannini made up several yards before slipping a pass into the feet of Baggio.

With his back to goal, Baggio let the ball hit off the inside of his left foot — bewitching his marker in the process — and turning inwards towards goal. Another Mexican defender sprinted in order to block the shot, but it never came.

Instead, Baggio shimmied to his left and, now faced with the goalkeeper, opened up his body and bent his shot with his left foot into the corner of the net. Baggio touched the ball only three times in the whole sequence. Glorious.

Lazio vs Brescia, Serie A —May 2003

No one should have that much control over a football. 

By this stage Baggio’s career was winding down. After the heartache of missing out on going to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Baggio had no objectives in his career anymore. To paraphrase Alexander the Great, Baggio had no more world’s to conquer.

His time playing for the biggest sides was long over, and his time playing for Italy was also now gone, with Giovanni Trapattoni confirmed to be staying on as Azzurri boss until after Euro 2004. Yet in terms of goals, he was still the gift that kept on giving. 

Baggio almost made it a personal mission to conjure up one masterpiece after another in what remained of his career. 

Playing in a Brescia side that contained the likes of Pep Guardiola, Andrea Pirlo, Stephen Appiah, Luca Toni and Dario Hubner at various points in his four-year stint with ‘The Little Swallows’, Baggio’s catalogue of goals in dark blue was, even by his own standards, extraordinary.

Inside the opening 20 minutes against Lazio in the Italian capital, Appiah sent a long pass into the feet of Baggio inside the penalty box. Now 36, Baggio had made a break in between the colossal presence of Jaap Stam and Sinisa Mihajlovic and, with Appiah’s pass bouncing, Baggio didn’t have many options open to him.

Stam was closing in and Baggio was facing away from Lazio goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi, and demonstrated god-like levels of ball manipulation by chipping both Stam and Peruzzi with one touch. The ball floated, coming up and then down, nestling into the corner of Peruzzi’s goal. It was simply extraordinary.

It’s a goal that’s difficult to articulate, it just has to be enjoyed, re-watched again and again. 

This was what Baggio was giving the world in the Indian summer of his career, almost making it a personal quest to score every conceivable kind of goal, leaving a treasure trove for us to marvel over — decades after he stopped playing — and topping lists like this one.

For any other player, these goals would represent the best of their careers. But Baggio was built, and played different. A player so good that former Fiorentina coach Aldo Agroppi once claimed the ‘angels sung in his legs’.