A leap back in time to the unparalleled experience of 2003: a day in Monte Carlo filled with quirks and direct contact with timeless and uninhibited figures. From the mid-afternoon spaghetti with garlic, oil, and chili pepper, to the shirt from the penalty missed on July 17, 1994, which handed the World Cup to Brazil, auctioned off at the gala dinner.
AI Overview is straightforward. Just type "Roberto Baggio and Golden Foot" and this is what you get:
Roberto Baggio won the inaugural Golden Foot Award in 2003, an award established in Monte Carlo. The event, held annually in the Principality of Monaco, honors the best players who have left a golden mark on the history of football, and Baggio was the first winner.
- Winner:
Roberto Baggio was the winner of the first edition of the Golden Foot in 2003.
- Location:
The award and the award ceremony take place in Monte Carlo, in the Principality of Monaco.
- Foundation:
The award was conceived and organized by the World Champions Club in the Principality of Monaco and takes place under the High Patronage of Prince Albert II.
- Award Connection:
In addition to winning the inaugural edition, Baggio left his “golden footprint” in Monte Carlo.
- Participation:
Since 2003, other champions such as Nedved, Ronaldo and Del Piero have been rewarded and have left their mark.”
Explicit, but not exhaustive.
The roll of honor is one for refined palates: 2003 Roberto Baggio (Brescia); 2004 Pavel Nedved (Juventus); 2005 Andrij Shevchenko (Milan); 2006 Luis Nazario de Lima “Ronaldo” (Real Madrid); 2007 Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus); 2008 Roberto Carlos (Fenerbahce); 2009 Ronaldo de Assis Moreira “Ronadinho” (Milan); 2010 Francesco Totti (Roma); 2011 Ryan Giggs (Manchester United); 2012 Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Paris Saint Germain); 2013 Didier Drogba (Galatasaray); 2014 Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona); Samuel Eto'o (Antalyaspor); 2016 Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus); 2017 Iker Casillas (Porto); 2018 Edison Cavani (Paris Saint-Germain); 2019 Luka Modric (Real Madrid); 2020 Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus); 2021 Mohamed Salah (Liverpool); 2022 Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona); 2023 Not assigned; 2024 Lautaro Martinez (Inter).
The Divine Ponytail can rightfully boast about opening this list of extraordinary names. Lionel Messi isn't there, that's true: while he waits for the Argentine to join this very special club, let's let him enjoy the string of Ballon d'Ors (8 + 1 with the team!) he flaunts at every opportunity. And let him also enjoy the blue number 10 jersey from the 1994 World Cup, which Baggio presented to him in Los Angeles in June 2025 on the sidelines of the Club World Cup. An identical one, but far more original because it was signed by all the Italian players who participated in that adventure, is locked away somewhere in Italy. It was purchased at auction during the 2003 Golden Foot.
Let's rewind the film of memories. It was the fall of 2003. As deputy editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, we found ourselves with an invitation to witness Baggio's coronation with the first Golden Foot. We took advantage of the opportunity to subsequently visit the Côte d'Azur, Port Fréjus to be precise, where it had been his summer holiday residence for about ten years.
Monte Carlo was thinking big. Many world-class players had appeared before Prince Albert. Towering above all—besides the crowned Baggio, of course—was Diego Armando Maradona, who, already prey to too many vices, surrounded himself with gossip-worthy figures. Among them was Saadi Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi's third son (yes, that's right: the "emperor" who camped out in the Capitoline Gardens whenever he visited Rome at Silvio Berlusconi's invitation). Saadi had gone from Al Ittihad to Perugia, before landing at Udinese and Sampdoria.
The gang gathered in a hotel in the Principality: they messed around to their heart's content and made bizarre requests—like spaghetti with garlic, oil, and chili pepper at six in the afternoon—which were promptly granted because "Maradona is... Maradona." The passing of the Argentine champion in November 2020 had already been reported! Infinite sadness. Years before that reunion in Monte Carlo, we had unwittingly been at the receiving end of an argument between Gino Palumbo (editor-in-chief of Gazzetta) and Corrado Ferlaino (president of Napoli Calcio) because, in a taxi in Barcelona, we accidentally learned from a chatty driver that Maradona had been signed by the Neapolitans without Ferlaino telling his friend Palumbo. The two even went boating together. But Corrado kept his mouth shut about the pending operation with Gino, and the Directorate-General found out about it after the fact through us. All hell broke loose…
Let's get back to the Golden Foot. In the middle was Antonio Caliendo, born in 1944, a multifaceted Neapolitan agent of football stars, the man behind Baggio's move from Fiorentina to Juventus and also an "assistant" to Antonioni, Trezeguet, Batistuta, Maicon, Caniggia, Eranio, Dirceu, Diaz, Carnevale... At the coronation ceremony and gala dinner, we found ourselves next to Beatrice Villalva, Trezeguet's wife, for example: a true cycling enthusiast and a great admirer of Miguel Indurain. Also in attendance were Loris Capirossi and his wife, and Mario Cipollini with an unidentified companion, but those are other stories.
In the middle of dinner, the blue jersey with the number 10 from the Americas was auctioned off. The one from Baggio's penalty miss on July 17, 1994, in the final against Brazil? ...could be. That one was blue. And the one locked away in a secret location is blue. Who knows, maybe it's the real one. The jersey was sold for €10.000, donated to charity. And for years, it hung in my office and served to "justify" the mistakes of anyone who reported to me. "If even Divin Ponytail made a mistake while wearing that, are certain mistakes excusable even for us humans, or not?" was my usual phrase.
The fact is that Baggio never got over that mistake. He even confesses as much in the latest Netflix documentary.
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