Monday, 04 September 2006 15:02:58
MILAN Giacinto Facchetti was born in Treviglio, Bergamo province on 18 July 1942. A gifted all-round sportsman in his youth, he played football for his local team and achieved good results in athletics championships. At the age of sixteen he was already a promising young player courted by Bergamo-based side Atalanta and Inter. Facchetti chose the Milanese Nerazzurri, and would go on to become a legend.

Facchetti made his Italian top-flight debut on 21 May 1961 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Inter beat Roma 2-0. The following Sunday in Milan he scored the first of his 59 goals for Inter in a match against Napoli. It was Helenio Herrera, coach of the legendary Great Inter side of all time, who combined Facchetti's attacking and defending abilities and invented the role of the modern full-back.

In his playing career Facchetti won 4 Italian league titles, 2 European Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups and a Coppa Italia. He collected a total of 476 Serie A appearances for Inter. His international career was just as extraordinary. Facchetti earned 94 Italy caps (70 as captain), won the 1968 European championship with Italy in 1968 and captained the Azzurri against Brazil in the World Cup final in Mexico in 1970.

After his playing career Facchetti took up various managerial positions at Inter, including technical director, board member, worldwide ambassador and vice president. On 30 January 2004 Massimo Moratti handed him the highest office: Facchetti was the first player in Inter's history to become president. Under his administration, Inter won a Scudetto, two Italian Cups and two Italian Super Cups.

An icon of world football, Facchetti held a number of institutional roles within FIFA and UEFA along with the great champions who have written the history of the sport.

Monday, 04 September 2006 19:17:20

Dear Cipe,

I didn't manage to tell you what I wanted to for fear of making you understand that time was inexorable and the illness terrible.
I am sorry, but I think I should thank you most of all for the patience you have always had with me. For your eyes that smiled, until the end, at the enthusiasm or the irony with which I tried to overcome the difficult times with you.
A few days ago you spoke to me with hardly any voice left - and with the expression of someone who loves you - about Inter, projecting your thoughts towards a future beyond our possibilities, humble, ignorant and human.
A few months ago I asked you, half joking and half serious, why we never managed to have a referee as a friend, so we could feel protected at least once. And you, with an expression that was both soft and severe, replied to me that I couldn't ask you this because you weren't capable.
Fantastic. Your great dignity wasn't capable of it, your natural honesty wasn't capable of it. Neither was the sportsmanship that remained intact since your first day at Inter, with Herrera who mistakenly called you Cipelletti, and since then all of us have called you Cipe. Gentle, intelligent, courageous, reserved, far from every vulgar reaction.
Thank you again for having honoured Inter, and with her, all of us.

Massimo Moratti