Giuseppe Wilson (, born Joseph Wilson, 27 October 1945 – 6 March 2022), also known as Pino Wilson, was an Italian

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 ...

who played as a

centre back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either ...

. Although born in

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

, he played the majority of his football career in Italy. At club level Wilson played for Internapoli and

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

, as well as representing the Italy national team three times in 1974. Wilson was one of 15 named in the Italian football betting scandal in 1980 (along with Bruno Giordano, Massimo Cacciatori and Lionello Manfredonia, in the first instance).

Early life

Wilson was born in Darlington to a Neapolitan woman Lina Di Francesca and Dennis Wilson, an Englishman who worked as an iron and steel worker at the local factory. Wilson's parents had met while Dennis was serving with the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

in Italy. When Joseph Wilson was just six months old, his family moved to

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 ...

, his mother's hometown as she found it hard to settle in the United Kingdom due to the cold winters. His father found a job as supervisor at a Nato base.

Club career

Internapoli and Lazio

Wilson started his career with Internapoli in 1964–65 and he played for the side more than 150 times. He joined S.S. Lazio in 1969. At Lazio he would enjoy his most notable spell as a footballer, staying with them for a decade playing over 300 games for them. This was a successful period for the club who won their first ever

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 Cop ...

title in 1973–74 as well as the

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 ...

in 1971.

New York Cosmos

As his career wound down, Wilson spent a season in the United States, playing in the NASL league with the

New York Cosmos New York Cosmos may refer to * New York Cosmos (1970–1985), a team in the North American Soccer League (then the top-tier soccer league in the United States and Canada) * New York Cosmos (2010), a team playing since 2020 in the National Independ ...

during 1978, and winning the title.Wilson's NY Cosmos stats
/ref> Wilson was named the Defensive Player of the game for

Soccer Bowl '78 Soccer Bowl '78 was the North American Soccer League's championship final for the 1978 season. It was the fourth NASL championship under the Soccer Bowl name. The match was played at Giants Stadium in the New York City suburb of East Ruther ...

Inter Montreal

In 1983, he joined FC Inter-Montréal of the Canadian Professional Soccer League.

International career

Wilson's success with Lazio gained him a place in the Italy national team, and he was in the squad for the 1974 FIFA World Cup. He made his debut in a friendly 0–0 draw against

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

in 1974, and he made two appearances at the 1974 World Cup, making three appearances in total for Italy.

Retirement and death

Wilson was a pundit for

Rai RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

. In 2013, sport journalist Vincenzo Di Michele wrote Wilson's biography, "Pino Wilson: a True Captain from Another Era". He was briefly involved with an Italian restaurant in his native Darlington named Casa di Chirico, after his grandmother's maiden name. Wilson died from a stroke in Rome on 6 March 2022, at the age of 76.Lazio, addio a Pino Wilson, il capitano dello scudetto nel 1974

Honours

Lazio *

: 1971 *

: 1973–74 New York Cosmos * NASL: 1978

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Giuseppe 1945 births 2022 deaths Footballers from Darlington Footballers from Naples Italian footballers Italian people of English descent People of Campanian descent Association football central defenders Italy international footballers 1974 FIFA World Cup players Serie A players Serie B players S.S. Lazio players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players New York Cosmos players Italian expatriate footballers Italian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate soccer players in the United States Inter-Montreal players Canadian Professional Soccer League (original) players