Giorgio Chinaglia, Italian Star and the Cosmos’ Leader, Dies at 65

Giorgio Chinaglia, who came to the New York Cosmos professional soccer team as one of Europe’s greatest and most charismatic goal scorers, then attracted almost as much attention for his impenitent candor — he even criticized his revered teammate Pelé — died on Sunday at his home in Naples, Fla. He was 65.

The cause was complications of a heart attack, said Charlie Stillitano, who was Chinaglia’s partner in hosting “The Football Show” on Sirius radio.

When Chinaglia (pronounced Kee-NAHL-yah) joined the Cosmos in 1976, the team had already begun collecting aging stars from Europe and North America in an effort to capture Americans’ attention. The year before, it signed Pelé, almost universally considered the best soccer player ever.

Chinaglia came to the team at 29 as the greatest player in the history of S.S. Lazio, a venerable Rome team. He had led Lazio to its first championship in Italy and was named its player of the century. He liked to say that news about him went on the front page while the pope landed on Page 3.

In New York, he joined with Pelé and Carlos Alberto, both of Brazil, and Franz Beckenbauer, of Germany, to give the Cosmos star power and drawing power. Crowds of more than 70,000 came to see the Cosmos play at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. He became the North American Soccer League’s career scoring leader, with 193 goals in 213 official matches; led the league in scoring four consecutive years; and was named most valuable player in 1981. (The league failed, but a new one has been formed with the same name.)

In a playoff game against the Tulsa Roughnecks in 1980, Chinaglia scored seven goals.

His game was brash, relying on power and supreme confidence.

“I am a finisher,” he said in 1978. “That means when I finish with the ball, it is in the back of the net.”

Indeed, Chinaglia’s charisma and taste for the spotlight on the New York sports stage rivaled that of Reggie Jackson of the Yankees and Walt Frazier of the Knicks. He wore silk robes to postgame news conferences. He commissioned two portraits of himself by LeRoy Neiman and hung them in his 22-room New Jersey mansion.

Even playing alongside the legendary Pelé did not dampen his self-regard. He was known to let drop a criticism or two of Pelé, at one point saying he was “not playing on all cylinders.”

In a widely reported locker-room confrontation, he complained that Pelé was being stingy about passing to Chinaglia — he habitually referred to himself in the third person. Pelé replied there was no point in passing to a striker who shot from impossible angles — to which Chinaglia leapt from his seat and bellowed: “I am Chinaglia! If I shoot from a place, it’s because Chinaglia can score from there!”

Stillitano, the radio show co-host, said in an interview that despite his grousing, Chinaglia considered Pelé to be history’s finest soccer player. But Beckenbauer agreed that Chinaglia could be abrasive. “Giorgio is a brilliant player,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 1981, “but he has no career as a diplomat.”

Giorgio Chinaglia was born in Carrara, Italy, on Jan. 24, 1947. His family of four emigrated to Wales in search of work and for a time lived in one room. His father became an ironworker, worked night shifts and saved enough money to go to culinary school. He worked as a chef, and eventually bought his own restaurant.

Chinaglia rose through the youth leagues to become a player-apprentice with a third-division team. His duties included cleaning cleats and sweeping. He returned to Italy for compulsory military service and then worked his way up to Lazio, the nation’s oldest team and the bitter rival of Roma across town.

In 1970, he met Connie Eruzione, the daughter of an American Army sergeant who had retired to Italy. In 1972, when Chinaglia toured the United States with Lazio, he began to invest in American real estate. In 1975, the family bought a house in Englewood, N.J., with the idea that Chinaglia might commute to Rome for games. But he decided to apply for a job with the Cosmos.

“It wasn’t at all like Pelé, whom I chased around the world for two years to get him to play for us,” Clive Toye, then president of the Cosmos, said in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1979. “Chinaglia walked in on his vacation in 1975 and told us he wanted to come. Either that, or he’d buy his own franchise.”

Chinaglia did buy a chunk of the Cosmos in 1985, when the team was collapsing financially, but lost his investment. In 2004, he tried to buy U.S. Foggia, a soccer team in Foggia, Italy, but was accused of money laundering and fled to the United States. In 2006, the Italian authorities again investigated money-laundering allegations involving a failed attempt to take over Lazio.

Chinaglia, who was president of Lazio from 1983 to 1985, did not know if the cases remained active, Stillitano said. “He never wanted to take the chance” on returning to Italy, he said.

Chinaglia became an American citizen in 1979. He told The Times Magazine that he proudly kept his citizenship papers in his locker next to a bottle of Chivas Regal.

His first marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by three children from that marriage — Giorgio Jr., Stephanie and Cynthia Chinaglia — as well as his wife, the former Angela Cacioppo, and their sons, Anthony and Donald.

Chinaglia, who was named to the United States National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2000, appeared twice in the 1974 World Cup for Italy. In the second game, against Haiti, he complained in a fit of anger when the coach benched him and was said to have made an obscene gesture, though he denied it was.

Later, when he was called uncoachable in New York, he readily agreed. “That’s because I know more than the stupid coaches,” he said. “That’s — how you say — presumptuous? It’s true.”