Today, Lazio are considered to be a perennial European side. Prior to this season, Lazio had competed in UEFA competition in each of the last eight years, doing so in both the Europa League and Champions League. But back in the 1990s, Lazio found themselves starved for intercontinental football.
Having won their inaugural Scudetto in 1974, Lazio were suddenly going on a quarter-century without any major silverware. It’s why Lazio decided to turn their attention to signing one of the most talented players in world football and zero in on Paul Gascoigne.
Star Status & Transfer to Lazio
Having already established himself as one of the most creative, unpredictable figures in the English top-flight for Newcastle and Tottenham Hotspur, Gascoigne made headlines in the 1990 FIFA World Cup when he led England all the way to the semifinals. He was challenging Diego Maradona for the status of the game’s best player, finishing fourth in the 1990 Ballon d’Or standings and attracting the interest of a number of top clubs.
It looked to be done and dusted for him to join Lazio for £8.5 million, only for Gascoigne to rupture his ACL in the 1991 FA Cup Final vs. Nottingham Forest and miss 18 months of football. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop Lazio from eventually signing him for a fee of £5.5 million, with Gascoigne receiving a £2 million signing-on fee and signing a contract worth £22,000 a week.
Football Italia: Coverage of Paul Gascoigne
In order to capitalize on the nationwide excitement around Gascoigne’s move to Italy, the British free-to-air public broadcast television Channel 4 decided to launch an innovative new program called Football Italia.
They sent James Richardson to Rome to be a hands-on producer to film segments with Gascoigne, but when ‘Gazza’ started to miss his filming sessions with regularity, Richardson was forced to step up as the main attraction. This would lead to Richardson living in Italy for a decade and establishing himself as one of the most adored football presenters in the industry thanks to his superb coverage of Italian football.
By the time Richardson returned to London in 2002, Gascoigne’s career was in a period of terminal decline due to a combination of alcoholism, depression, and other off-the-field issues, confirmed by Richardson in an exclusive interview with The Laziali.
Paul was very down-to-earth, very natural, very open. I mean, I think the things that you would maybe look back and go, ‘Well, maybe that was where the problem lied,’ was the fact that he was so open to people, so he didn’t have guards against people. And I certainly got taken advantage of a little bit. He seemed to be somebody who was secure with himself.
It’s such a great shame that he experienced so many problems, and I guess the position that he was in Rome, particularly where he was not only under a huge amount of pressure in terms of expectations and the kind of public spotlight, but also he was away from his normal kind of network of support, probably didn’t help him in that regard.
But he was just a lovely chap, he was such a nice guy to work with. Once you had him sat down where he was meant to be, he was a dream. And the rest of it, you kind of immediately forgave him the second he turned up, because he was and is just such a nice guy.
The Ups & Downs of Life in Italy for Gascoigne
Gascoigne made his Serie A debut on September 27, 1992, playing 45 minutes in a 1-1 draw vs. Genoa, a match that was televised in Britain and Italy. Whilst Gascoigne struggled for consistency in his return to fitness, he nevertheless ingratiated himself to the Biancocelesti fanbase after scoring 4 goals and 3 assists in 22 league appearances to lead Lazio to a fifth-place finish, qualifying them for Europe for the first time in 16 years.
But although his brilliance and technical finesse was well-documented, Gascoigne ran afoul of the local media after punching numerous reporters and also belching into a microphone on live television, whilst he also perturbed Lazio owner Sergio Cragnotti after Gascoigne greeted him by saying “Tua figlia, grande tette” (“Your daughter, big tits”).
And when he fell out of shape, Lazio manager Dino Zoff demanded him to lose 13kg by the start of the 1993/94 season or else lose his place in the first team. Gascoigne shed the fat thanks to an aggressive diet, but after Zoff told him to go on holiday to recover from an injury, he returned overweight.
He didn’t fare much better under new manager Zdeněk Zeman, who arrived from Foggia and replaced Zoff at the helm. After scoring just 2 goals in 17 appearances in 1993/94, Gascoigne’s season came to a premature end after he fractured his tibia and fibia whilst attempting to tackle Alessandro Nesta in a training session.
Gascoigne would spend a year out of action, before returning in April 1995 and playing the full 90 vs. Reggiana and Padova and coming off the bench vs. Roma and Cagliari. However, he never quite managed to fit into Zeman’s stringent approach to training, with the Englishman annoying his coach on a number of occasions like when he snatched his whistle and placed it on a goose that frequented Lazio’s training ground.
It’s why, after just three years in the Italian capital, Gascoigne decided to start a new adventure in Scotland and join Rangers in July 1995 for a club record fee of £4.3 million.
Whilst Paul Gascoigne never quite lived up to the hype at Lazio, his Italian adventure has lived on in the memory of both English and Italian football supporters three decades later.
When back in England, at M’borough, Gazza tried to hit an elbow towards an opponent during a PL match and successfully broke his left arm in rival’s head. Enough said about Gazza’s bad luck.
I might be the only laziale who doesn’t “think or care about” Gascoigne, he’s just one of remember-that-guy players like Sculli.