Nomadic Venezuelan enjoyed brief stint at Swansea inbetween making a name for himself in MLS
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| Savarese (l) & Romo are introduced to the media by John Hollins |
Picture the scene. Swansea are 13th in League One (then Division Two) and John Hollins announces his long search for a striker is over. A press conference had been called, and the signatures of Givoanni Savarese and David Romo were announced, for fees which, combined, amounted to around £250k. As for the latter, the BBC mentioning that he played youth football with Anelka was about as auspicious as his Swansea career got, but the former came with a somewhat more impressive pedigree.
Fresh from playing for Venezuela against Brazil (although they'd gone down 6-0, with Romario grabbing four goals), Savarese was brought in with a view to ending the Swans increasing goal troubles. Promoted the previous year as champions, the Swans had nevertheless only scored 51 goals in 46 games - surely the lowest goals total accrued by the eventual champions of the division. Swansea got off to a slow start to life in the 2000/2001 season, drawing the first few games before eventually securing a couple of wins, and at about this time the two signings were announced as Hollins looked to strengthen his impoverished squad.
Savarese started his footballing career playing for a number of Venezualan clubs, most famous Deportivo Italia, before moving to the US to play college football (and, I assume, study?). After completing college, he started the 1994/1995 season with the excellently-named "Long Island Rough Riders" - my kind of team name, that, and after scoring 27 goals in 37 games Savarese was, in the inaugural MLS draft, drafted by the New York/New Jersey Metrostars. At the Metrostars he proceeded to make a bit of a name for himself; he scored the club's first ever goal as they went down 2-1 to LA Galaxy, and went on to score the first eight goals of the club's history (not including an own goal in their favour at Tampa). He scored 41 league goals for the Metrostars in three season (44 in all competitions), which remained an MLS record until Juan Pablo Angel broke it in 2009, and the more of this sort of stuff you read it seems remarkable that he should wind up playing for Swansea.
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| Savarese in action for Swansea |
Savarese proved to be a more of a poacher than anything else, and in fairness his goal return was pretty good, with 11 goals in 33 appearances for the Swans. I remember as a teenage fan the signing of an international striker seemed like something of a coup, but in truth the Swans really, really struggled that season - only managing 47 goals and 8 wins all season, and seeing themselves relegated in one but last place, saved from propping up the division by an Oxford side who remarkably conceded 100 goals that season.
As mentioned, after his stint at the Swans Savarese played a game for Millwall, before a brief spot of globetrotting saw him return to Long Island for the 2004 season and his goal return was good, with 5 goals in 10 games, but this was to be his last season as a professional football player. At the age of 33, Giovanni Savarese retired from professional football. Savarese immediately returned to the Metrostars to serve as their director of youth developent, and he retained his position as the club were re-branded as the "New York Red Bulls", before joining the newly formed New York Cosmos as director of their academy. The New York Cosmos claim lineage from the famous side that existed in the old North American Soccer League, and interestingly there's another link to the Swans here.
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| Giorgio Chinaglia. Renegade. |
Anyone know who Giorgio Chinaglia is? No? Well he started his career with the Swans, before going on to be voted Lazio's best ever player, as well as retiring as the NASL's record goalscorer, with 243 goals - and what's more impressive is that he was competing against Pelé in what was, at times, essentially a "who can score the best goal contest". Amazingly, Chinaglia only played six games for the Swans before military service meant he had to move with his family back to Italy. It seems he essentially spent his time in the military playing football, and on his return to civilian life he played for Massesse and Internapoli in Serie C before Lazio signed him up. He went on to score 98 goals in 209 goals for the club, before his shock move to the NASL. It's hard to exaggerate how big a star Chinaglia was in American soccer at this point, and it seems he was even on a par with Pelé, so when I read a book about the Cosmos and found mentions of Swansea it really did blow me away. His career was. nonetheless, littered with off-field incidents. As an apprentice at Swansea, he refused to help paint one of the stands and threw the paint pot at the stand in question, but more impressive is what he got up to in the big derby between Rome and Lazio. Playing up front for Lazio, Chinaglia scored before he ran to celebrate directly in front of the "Curva Sud", which is the area reserved exclusively for Roma fans, with his index finger raised, shouting: "Look at me! I am Giorgio Chinaglia! I beat you!"
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| The New York Cosmos badge. Retro. |
It seems a shame Chinaglia had to leave South Wales, but in his own words, if he'd have stayed in the valleys it's more than likely his career wouldn't have reached the heights it did. Sadly, Chinaglia passed away in April last year, so he won't be around to see the current incarnation of the Cosmos attempt to gain entry into the MLS - but they'll be in steady hands as Giovanni Savarese was appointed head coach in November as they look to mount an assault on the North American Soccer League for the "Fall 2013 Season", whatever that is (the NASL serves as a feeder league for the MLS and is confusingly nothing to do with the NASL that the previous version of the Cosmos played in). Savarese will find himself in esteemed company though; Pelé is their honorary president, and Carlos Alberto & Shep Messing are listed as international ambassadors, while Eric Cantona has been director of soccer since 2011, with ex-USA international Cobi Jones as his deputy. Only in America can an ex footballer with an off-field role have a deputy...
So, it seems that's what happened to Giovanni Savarese. He basically had a couple of good years in the MLS and that has served to set him up well for a career off the field, and good luck to him. It must be a good laugh being involved with the Cosmos; hopefully he remembers his time with the Swans fondly as I'd have no objection to a little commercial venture with a team who have Pelé as their president...