Mancini Magic and Del Piero Silencers: Destination Calcio’s Favourite Ever Goals

Picking a list of the best goals ever scored in Serie A is a fool’s errand for several different reasons. First and foremost, so many goals have been lost forever to anyone bar those who witnessed them, as they were not caught on camera.

Of those that were indeed recorded, some of the footage is so grainy that we can’t really see the goal, but are left to our own devices and have to mentally reconstruct it frame-by-frame.

Perhaps one day Serie A will follow the path trodden by the NFL and unlock an enormous digital archive of perfectly restored videos, but until then we will collectively live in hope.

Mostly, however, selecting some of the best Serie A goals is nigh-on impossible due to the ludicrous amount of contenders. Is Pine Barrens really that much better than Whitecaps? Sure, Don’t Look Back in Anger is a generational tune, but can we all agree that Slide Away deserves just as much recognition?

You get the drift here.

Below, the Destination Calcio team have picked our their favourite Serie A goals. There are no restrictions in terms of eras, teams or players, but there is one massive caveat.

In the list below you won’t find any of the bonafide hits. As much as we love Roberto Mancini’s backheel against Parma and we could watch *that* Roberto Baggio goal for Brescia against Juventus on a loop for days on end, it felt we needed to go for something more obscure.

So, take a moment for yourself and gorge on these beauties. It is Christmas, after all.

Roberto Mancini, Napoli vs Sampdoria, 1990

Serie A was awash with cool players in the 1990s. And they didn’t come much cooler than Roberto Mancini, a swashbuckling No10 whose style and panache went hand-in-hand with a fiery temperament and an industrial dose of phenomenal talent.

That he showcased such brilliance wearing one of world football’s most recognisable and iconic kits only added to the mystique.

Mancini scored all manners of spectacular goals in his career, but his second in a 4-1 mauling of Napoli in November 1990 stands out for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost there is the finish, a stunning volley delivered with such insouciance that Mancini may as well have been knocking back a glass of Chianti with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

Attilio Lombardo races down the wing and swings a cross that is out of reach for Gianluca Vialli, but perfectly weighted for Mancini, who is just arriving in the box at the far post behind his goal twin.

Without breaking stride, he opens up his body as if to hit a bicycle kick with his right foot, but instead of directing the ball across the goal, he sends it crashing against the near post and in before knee-sliding on the muddy San Paolo turf all in one fluid movement.

All while decked in an absolute all-timer of a Sampdoria white away kit, blue collar flapping in the wind, socks casually rolled down.

The Blucerchiati had gone top of Serie A two weeks prior, but their 4-1 thrashing of reigning champions Napoli was their biggest statement of intent yet and symbolic passing of the baton from Diego Maradona to his fellow No10, who led Sampdoria to the Scudetto on the back of a preposterous 12 goals and 18 assists in 30 matches.

Dan Cancian

Gianluca Vialli, Cremonese vs Juventus, 1994

With Roberto Mancini being the first entry in the list, it’s only right to have goal twin Gianluca Vialli second.

In his four years at Juventus, Vialli’s best campaign was unquestionably his third. In the 1994-95 season he finally hit the consistent levels he’d shown for years at Sampdoria, and produced 22 goals in all competitions, 17 coming in Serie A.

That season Vialli managed to score all kinds of goals: headers, solo efforts, tap-ins and overhead kicks. Against Cremonese, in the city where he was born and against the club where he made his name as a teenager in the early 1980s, he scored not only one overhead kick in the 1994-95 campaign, but two.

It’s the first one here that makes it to this list.

On a water-soaked pitch at the Stadio Giovanni Zini, Vialli produced a textbook overhead kick to put Juve in front.

In the 36th minute, midfielder Giancarlo Marocchi swung in from the right-hand side for Fabrizio Ravanelli, and The White Feather could only head the ball high in Vialli’s direction, with the Juve No9 in close proximity.

Vialli, without hesitation, jumped and executed a textbook overhead kick, or rovesciata in Italian, from just near the penalty spot.

Cremonese’s goalkeeper could only push the ball onto the crossbar, as it bounced down and crept over the line.

Five months later Vialli would repeat the trick against the Grigiorossi, but the first was the better of the pair.

Emmet Gates

Vincenzo Montella, Lazio v Roma, 2002

“Sheer audacity”: two words which explain Vincenzo Montella’s lust for challenging the world’s greatest goalkeepers.

Neapolitan by birthplace but immortalized in Genoa and Rome, The Little Aeroplane is remembered best for firing bombs at Inter and Fiorentina and a career-best performance in the Derby della Capitale.

Earlier in the season, Montella suffered from thigh issues and missed Roma’s 2-0 derby win in the reverse leg during a four-month layoff.

Moreover, this was part of the golden age when reigning Serie A topscorer Hernan Crespo started for Lazio and Francesco Totti had just captained Roma to the Scudetto.

Indeed, it would take something special to steal the limelight from the planet’s best attackers. Montella’s first-half hat-trick set the Olimpico alight that night, as Serie A’s last two Scudetto winners faced off in the Sunday late kick off in front of more than 72,000 fanatics. But the match was far from over.

The buildup was just as beautiful as the finish.

With Lazio pushing to score consecutive goals and cut the deficit to one, then-manager Fabio Capello left Montella on his lonesome to combat the three-man Laziale defence of Fernando Cuoto, Alessandro Nesta and Sinisa Mihajlovic.

Here’s where Montella makes them look more like Frank Sinclair, Vratislav Gresko and Titus Bramble.

As Francesco Antonioli punted over halfway, the 172cm Montella jostled with Mihajlovic for prime position, the former taking the ball away from his man-marker only to invite the tandem sliding challenges of the Serbian defender and the ravenous Giuliano Giannichedda.

Unlike Montella’s incredibly accurate radar that night, both Lazio players missed their targets, those being Montella’s ankles. The ball rolled to the advantage of Damiano Tommasi on the right, who carried forward as La Lupa’s number 9 quickly regained his feet to receive 35 yards out.

Two touches and a cracking strike followed. Even Capello couldn’t hide his emotions, reacting with a double fist pump as L’Aereplanino flew away to celebrate with his teammates. The commentator’s remark, “Un gol pazzesco di Vincenzo Montella,” is an understatement.

The replay shows the incredulous Fernando Couto admiring how the ball kissed the underside of the crossbar, centimetres away from Angelo Peruzzi’s top corner.

Unquestionably unstoppable. The scoreline: Lazio 1 Montella 4.

Everything Montella kicked turned to gold: Just a week previously, he scored against Barcelona to lead Roma to a resounding 3-0 win in the Champions League. Three weeks later, he found the net twice against England for Italy.

The charisma he showed as one of the best strikers of his generation has transcended into the coaching arena with Turkey. In all, Montella struck nine goals for Roma against Lazio.

David Ferrini

Alessandro Del Piero, Inter vs Juventus, 2006

This is perhaps a touch self-indulgent, but what else can you be when asked for your personal favourite strike from a field of literally thousands.

My introduction to Italian football in the flesh came courtesy of my dad in the form of a 15th birthday present. He had picked a humdinger too, somehow securing tickets to the Derby d’Italia.

The memories of that weekend in Milan consist mainly of incredible food and the earsplitting noise of a vibrating San Siro. But they also include the genius of one of Italy’s greats.

Alessandro Del Piero was past his peak in 2006. His ability to swivel past defenders had waned and Juventus and Italy had both began to put their trust in other stars. That didn’t mean his moments of magic had disappeared too, though.

The game itself was a seismic clash at the top of the table, with a host of huge Serie A names on show. Zlatan Ibrahimovic had opened the scoring. Adriano had seen a goal ruled out after smacking an indirect free kick past Gianluigi Buffon. The whole place shook when Walter Samuel planted a header into the corner to equalise.

Step forward Del Piero to silence the place once more. Just five minutes were left on the clock when he stood over a dead ball, 25 yards out just slightly to the left of the “D”.

On as a substitute and the wrong side of 30, he rolled back the years to produce an arrow of an effort that thudded into the top corner. Julio Cesar in the Inter goal didn’t even move.

Off went the Juventus talisman on his familiar celebration, tongue out, taunting the majority of the 80,000 in attendance.

Six months later, Del Piero would be a Serie B player and Juventus a Serie B club thanks to the outcome of the Calciopoli scandal. This was one of their last great moments before their world came crashing down around their ears. It was a privilege to witness it.

Harry Slavin