Gianni Brera
| Gianni Brera | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Giovanni Luigi Brera 8 September 1919 San Zenone al Po, Italy |
| Died | 19 December 1992 (aged 73) Codogno, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
Giovanni Luigi "Gianni" Brera (8 September 1919 – 19 December 1992) was an Italian sports journalist and novelist.
Brera was born in San Zenone al Po, near Pavia, the son of Carlo, a tailor, and Marietta Ghisoni. Among his ancestors was a Hungarian great-grandmother who married a Lombard sergeant of the Imperial Austrian Army.
He obtained his degree in Political Sciences at Pavia University in 1943, while on leave from his post as Lieutenant of the paratrooper division "Folgore". In late spring 1944 he joined the Italian Resistance movement and fought in the Ossola Valley. He took pride in having lived through World War II without ever shooting another human being.
In 1943 he married Rina Gramegna (a teacher, 1920–2000) and had four sons: Franco (1944-1944), Carlo (a painter, 1946–1994), Paolo (a novelist and journalist, 1949-), Franco (a musician, 1951-).
When he was discharged in 1945, he started working for La Gazzetta dello Sport (Italy's first sports daily), eventually becoming Editor-in-Chief in 1949, the youngest-ever Editor-in-Chief of a national newspaper in Italy.
Brera is widely credited for innovating Italian language, notably by creating a whole new terms for football (soccer), some of which have been adopted by other countries. The word libero (sweeper) for the third defender was coined by Brera. Famous nicknames he invented for Italian players include Abatino ("Little Abbot") for Gianni Rivera and Rombo di tuono ("Rolling Thunder") for Gigi Riva. Apart from the imaginative lexicon, Brera was noteworthy for his rich style and very free usage of foreign or regional phrases. He spoke fluent French and Spanish, a little German and Latin, and some English.
...
Wikipedia