Giuliano Giuliani (29 September 1958 – 14 November 1996) was an Italian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

Club career

Giuliani developed in the

Arezzo Arezzo ( , , ) , also ; ett, 𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌕𐌉𐌌, Aritim. is a city and ''comune'' in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of above sea level. ...

youth sector and later made his professional debut with the senior squad. He made his

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

debut during the 1980–81 season with

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label=Comasco dialect, Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and ...

. In 1985, he moved to

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

and in 1988 he moved to Maradona's

Napoli Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, where he achieved notable success and recognition due to his performances; with the club, he won an

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

( 1988–89) and a

title ( 1989–90). He later moved to

Udinese Udinese Calcio, commonly referred to as Udinese, is a professional Italian football club based in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, that currently plays in Serie A. It was founded on 30 November 1896 as a sports club, and on 5 July 1911 as a fo ...

in 1990, where he ended his career, retiring from professional football in 1993.

International career

Giuliani represented

Italy at the 1988 Summer Olympics Italy competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. 253 competitors, 212 men and 41 women, took part in 140 events in 23 sports. Medalists Competitors The following is the list of number of competitors in the Games. Archery Gia ...

, where the team finished in fourth place after reaching the semi-finals of the tournament.

Style of play

Giuliani was known to be an efficient rather than spectacular goalkeeper, with a good all-round game and few weaknesses, being adept both in his shot-stopping between the posts and at rushing off his line, and often produced decisive saves throughout his career. Although he was known for his reserved character, he also excelled at organising his team's defensive line.

Personal life

Giuliani was married to the Italian showgirl and television personality Raffaella Del Rosario. The couple met in 1987 and were wed in 1988; together they had a daughter, Gessica, born in 1989. Giuliani believed that he contracted the HIV virus in 1989 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

during

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the FI ...

's wedding party on 7 November. There he met a woman – possibly a prostitute – who he believed had infected him; in 1991, Giuliani confided to his wife that he had betrayed her only on that one occasion. The news of his illness was leaked by the media in 1992, and there were initially rumours in the press that his disease was related to drug use, which were later discredited however. He subsequently retired to Bologna in 1993, where he ran a clothing store and received treatment for the disease. Although Giuliani and Del Rosario had separated in 1991, she tended to him throughout his illness. Giuliani died from a pulmonary complications which arose as a result of

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

on 14 November 1996, at the

Policlinico Sant'Orsola-Malpighi The Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic (official Italian name: ''Azienda ospedaliero-universitaria Policlinico Sant’Orsola Malpighi'') is a university and public hospital. The Polyclinc is the largest hospital (beds) in Italy, and the first of t ...

in Bologna.

Honours

Club

: 1989–90 *

: 1988–89

References

1958 births 1996 deaths Italian men's footballers Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players SS Arezzo players Como 1907 players Hellas Verona FC players SSC Napoli players Udinese Calcio players Olympic footballers for Italy Footballers at the 1988 Summer Olympics UEFA Cup winning players Men's association football goalkeepers AIDS-related deaths in Italy Infectious disease deaths in Emilia-Romagna Footballers from Rome {{Italy-footy-goalkeeper-stub