Gianni Brera

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Giovanni Luigi Brera, known as Gianni Brera, (September 8, 1919 - December 19, 1992) was an Italian sports journalist and novelist.

[edit] Biography

Brera was born in San Zenone al Po, near Pavia.

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.

When he was demobilized in 1945, he entered La Gazzetta dello Sport (Italy's first and foremost sports daily) to become its Editor-in-Chief in 1949, the youngest-ever Editor-in-Chief of a national newspaper in Italy.

He is credited with innovating the Italian language, notably by creating a whole new vocabulary for football (soccer), some of which has spilt over into languages other than Italian. The word libero for a player's particular role was created by Gianni Brera: famous nicknames of Italian players created by him included Abatino ("Little Abbot") for Gianni Rivera and Rombo di tuono ("Thunder Rumble") for Gigi Riva. Outside of sports, he also created the word Padania for Northern Italy. Apart from the lexicon, Brera was noteworthy for his rich style and very free usage of foreign or regional phrases.

Gianni Brera wrote in La Gazzetta dello Sport, Il Guerin Sportivo, Il Giorno, Il Giornale, La Repubblica and several other publications. His articles were translated into several European languages.

He also wrote a number of books (handbooks, essays and fiction) and a theatre play.

Gianni Brera always took the point of view of a Northern Italian of Lombardy. Some people state that he disliked people coming from Southern Italy.

He is considered to have been the most influential Italian sports journalist of the 20th Century. In 2003, the monumental Arena Civica (stadium), built in Milan by Napoleon I of France in the early 19th century, was renamed Arena Gianni Brera^{[citation needed]}.

Brera died at Codogno, near Lodi, in 1992, because of a car accident (he was not the driver of the car).