Salvatore Bagni

He later played for Serie B side Avellino for a season (1988–89) before retiring. In total, he scored 52 goals in Serie A.

Bagni is best remembered for his period at Napoli (1984–88), where he won a scudetto-Coppa Italia double in 1987, which included the first of two league titles won by Napoli in its history; at Napoli, Bagni often partnered up with Fernando De Napoli in midfield, as a defensive foil to the club's star playmaker Diego Maradona.

Bagni later made 41 appearances for the senior Italy national football team between 1981 and 1987, scoring five goals. He made his senior international debut on 6 January 1981, in the 1980 Mundialito in Montevideo, in a 1–1 draw against the Netherlands. He scored his first goal for Italy on 4 February 1984, in a 5–0 victory over Mexico, after only 20 seconds; for 29 years, this was the fastest goal ever scored by an Italian player at international level, until his record was beaten by a single second by Emanuele Giaccherini's opening goal in a 2–2 draw against Haiti in 2013. Bagni was initially named part of the 40-man preliminary Italian squads for both the 1978 and 1982 FIFA World Cups, even featuring in the unofficial, experimental pre-trounament friendlies, but his negative performances later led him to be excluded from the final squads for both tournaments, in which Italy went on to manager fourth and first-place finishes respectively. He was later included in the Italian 1986 FIFA World Cup squad under manager Enzo Bearzot, however, wearing the number-10 shirt.

Bagni played for the Italy national under-21 football team between 1978 and 1980, scoring 5 goals in 12 appearances, including a hat-trick against Greece. With the under-21 side, he also took part at two UEFA European Under-21 Championships (1978 and 1980), and also at the 1984 Summer Olympics, where Italy finished in fourth place after reaching the semi-final.

Bagni began his career with Serie D club Carpi (1975–77), later playing with Serie A side Perugia (1977–1981) and putting on some encouraging performances, before moving to Italian giants Inter (1981–84), where he won the Coppa Italia in 1982, and was considered a potential heir to Gabriele Oriali in midfield.

Salvatore Bagni (Italian pronunciation: [salvaˈtoːre ˈbaɲɲi] ; born 25 September 1956 in Correggio) is a former Italian footballer who mainly played as a central midfielder. He currently works as a sporting director. Bagni played for several Italian clubs throughout his career, in particular Inter, where he won a Coppa Italia title, and Napoli, where he won a Scudetto-Coppa Italia double. At international level, he represented Italy on 41 occasions, and took part at the 1984 Summer Olympics and the 1986 FIFA World Cup.

Bagni is married to Letizia Turchi (born in 1952), with whom he has had three children: Elisabetta, Gianluca and Raffaele. His youngest son died in 1992, at the age of three, in a road accident.