Giuseppe Massa (26 April 1948 in

Naples 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 ...

– 17 October 2017 in Naples) was an Italian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Playing career

Massa began his youth career with Flegrea, before joining local side Internapoli in 1965, whose home stadium was the

Stadio Arturo Collana Stadio Arturo Collana is a football stadium in Naples, Italy; it is located in the Vomero area of the city. The stadium was built in the latter part of the 1920s, originally under the name Stadio XXVIII Ottobre. History The stadium was named aft ...

in the

Vomero Vomero () is a bustling hilltop district of metropolitan Naples, Italy — comprising approximately and a population of 48,000. Vomero is noted for its central square, Piazza Vanvitelli; the ancient Petraio, its earliest path up and down t ...

region of Naples. His performances caught the attention of

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, and he subsequently joined the club in 1966, remaining with the team until 1972, scoring 31 goals in 137 appearances and forming a notable offensive partnership with striker Giorgio Chinaglia, playing in a creative role; together, they helped the club obtain promotion to

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 ...

during the 1971–72 season, while Chinaglia finished the season as the league's top-scorer, largely thanks to Massa's assists. His performances caught the attention of larger clubs, and he subsequently joined Inter, where he remained for two seasons, but failed to impress, and later joined Napoli ahead of the

1974–75 Serie A The 1974–75 Serie A season was won by Juventus. Teams Varese, Ascoli and Ternana had been promoted from Serie B while Foggia and Genoa was relegated but Verona was disqualified to Serie B. Final classification Results Top goalscorers ...

season. Under manager

Luis Vinicio Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

, he won a

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

with the club in

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

, and also reached the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup the following season. He left Napoli in 1978, to join

Avellino Avellino () is a town and ''comune'', capital of the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is situated in a plain surrounded by mountains east of Naples and is an important hub on the road from Salerno to Benevento. ...

, where he remained until 1981, before joining

Campania Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...

in 1982, where he ultimately ended his career in 1984.

Style of play

A mobile and diminutive winger, Massa was a traditional

number 7 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube (algebra), cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion ...

, who was known in particular for his speed, technique, dribbling skills, and eye for goal, as well as his ability to create goalscoring opportunities for his teammates.

Managerial career

As a manager, Massa worked as a coach in the Napoli youth system.

Personal life

Giuseppe Massa's daughter, Azzurra, is also a footballer, who currently plays for Carpisa Yamamy. His son, Maurizio, died in 2004 from a rare blood disease.

Death

Massa died on 17 October 2017, at the age of 69.

Honours

;Lazio *

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

: 1968–69. *

Coppa delle Alpi Coppa delle Alpi (translated as ''Cup of the Alps'') was a friendly football tournament, first organized by the Italian national league as it started in 1960 and then they were aided by the Swiss League from 1962, for the reason that the majorit ...

winner: 1971. ;Napoli *

winner: 1975–76. * Anglo-Italian League Cup winner: 1976.

References

External links

Inter Profile
1948 births 2017 deaths Italian men's footballers Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Serie D players SS Lazio players Inter Milan players SSC Napoli players US Avellino 1912 players Men's association football forwards Footballers from Naples {{Italy-footy-forward-1940s-stub