Roberto Bettega
- Simon Basten
- Nov 4
- 2 min read
Roberto Bettega was born in Turin on December 27, 1950.
He started playing football in the Juventus youth teams and was often compared to John Charles. In the summer of 1969 he was loaned to Varese to gain experience, under Nils Liedholm. In his first season as a professional he made 33 appearances with 13 goals and impressed. The club won the Serie B league and were promoted to Serie A.
Back in Turin in 1970, he then stayed for 13 seasons making 490 appearances and scoring 179 goals. He won the league seven times plus a Coppa Italia in 1978-79 and a UEFA Cup in 1976-77. He was top Serie A scorer in 1979-80.
He debuted in Serie A on September 27 1970 scoring the decisive goal against Catania. He was a modern forward. Fast, he could play with both feet, had excellent aerial abilities and was often the second forward, partnering with Pietro Anastasi, Roberto Boninsegna, Pietro Paolo Virdis and Paolo Rossi. But he could also play at the centre of the attack, helped on the wing by Franco Causio.
In 1983 he signed for Toronto Blizzard and played in the NASL for two years making 48 appearances with 11 goals. In 1984 he moved back to Italy and was about to sign for Udinese, but he was involved in a bad car accident on the Turin-Milan motorway and in a coma for a couple days so then forced to retire.
In all of these years he was a fundamental player for the Italian National Team. He played 42 games with 19 goals appearing in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. Together with Paolo Rossi, Italy went very close to reaching the final, ending up fourth. His spectacular goal against Argentina in Buenos Aires was one of the highlights of the campaign. He unfortunately was unable to play for Italy in Spain in 1982 due to injury.
After a long period where he was involved in television punditry, in 1994 he became Juventus’ Vice President and together with sporting director Luciano Moggi and managing director Antonio Giraudo formed a triad that managed the Bianconeri in one of their most prolific periods in history. The Calciopoli scandal of 2006 put an end to his managerial career. He was not involved in the Sports Court inquest and managed to be acquitted by the penal courts, and returned to be number two of the club in 2009 but he only stayed five months before being replaced by Giuseppe Marotta.
Bettega must be considered one the greats of 1970s Italian football. His acrobatic header against England in the 1978 World Cup qualification match in Rome, was typical of his abilities. He began as a centre forward early in his career but he gradually played further back. He was still lethal and was also able to help his partnering centre forwards. He scored a lot, in all possible ways and perhaps could have scored even more if he had taken more penalties (only 6 in his career). He is among the few players who have scored 4 goals in a single match for Italy alongside Gigi Riva, Alberto Orlando, Francesco Pernigo, Omar Sivori and Carlo Biagi.
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