Dino Zoff

Dino Zoff (born February 28-1942) is an Italian former football goalkeeper and is the oldest winner ever of the World Cup, which he earned as captain of the Italian team in the 1982 tournament in Spain, at the age of 40. Zoff was a goalkeeper of outstanding ability and has a place in the history of the sport among the very best in this role, being named the 3rd greatest goalkeeper of the 20th century by the IFFHS behind Lev Yashin and Gordon Banks. He holds the record for the longest playing time without allowing goals in international tournaments (1142 minutes) set between 1972 and 1974. With 112 caps he is third only to Fabio Cannavaro and Paolo Maldini in number of appearances for the Azzurri. In 2004 Pelé named him as one of the 125 greatest living footballers. After retiring as a footballer, Zoff went on to become coach for the Italian national team and several other Italian clubs.

After his retirement as a player, Zoff went into coaching, joining the technical staff at Juventus, where he was head coach from 1988 to 1990. In 1990 he was sacked, despite winning the UEFA Cup. He then joined Lazio, where he became president in 1994. In 1998 Zoff was appointed coach of the Italian national team. Using a more open and attacking style than usually used by Italian sides, he coached Italy to a second-place finish in Euro 2000, suffering an extra-time defeat at the hands of France in the final, when in the 90th minute of the game, Italy were 1-0 up and less than sixty seconds from winning the tournament before France scored to equalise and go to extra time. A few days later Zoff resigned, following strong criticism from A.C. Milan president and politician Silvio Berlusconi. Zoff returned to Lazio, but resigned following a poor start to the 2001–02 season. In 2005, he was named the coach of Fiorentina. But after saving the team from relegation on the last day of the season, Zoff was let go.