"It was originally intended to be Paul Gascoigne's vehicle, the Saturday morning show!"
As Gazzetta Football Italia's long-time former presenter James Richardson reminded us on Team 33 this week, the cult Channel 4 show owed a lot to Gazzamania - and on top of that, he was supposed to present their highlights show.
Two years after Italia '90, when Paul Gascoigne made his mark on the global stage for England, he would leave Tottenham for SS Lazio for €7.5M.
In a league which was then the best in the world and packed with superstars, Richardson told us: "It was a really big question, wherever [Gazza] was going to go to play, everybody wanted to know how he was going get on and everybody after the World Cup [in 1990] wanted to know whether he would match up with the best in the world. And the best place to do that was Serie A."
You can listen to our interview with James via the podcast:
Gazza would arrive at Lazio in the summer of '92, having missed the entirety of the previous season due to a knee injury first sustained in the 1991 FA Cup final, and then further aggravated by extra-curricular activities.
As James told us, Gazzetta Football Italia owed a debt to Gazza's move to Rome in 1992 as the launchpad to success, with James narrating 1994 documentary Gazza's Italian Diaries on Channel 4.
Indeed the scar on his right knee is eerily visible [4 minutes 53 seconds in] during one of his running sessions:
He did not endear himself with the club's president Sergio Cragnotti first off, however, as the former England midfielder complimented his paymaster on the size of his daughter's breasts - in broken Italian. Not the best way to introduce yourself to an acquaintance.
Fortunately for Gazza, when you play for one of the Rome clubs, there is quick way to fast-track your way into the fans' affections - score in the derby.
He did just that and it was a vital goal as well, in the guise of a last-minute equaliser against Roma in the Stadio Olimpico three months into his debut season:
Lazio would qualify for the UEFA Cup via a fifth-place finish that season, with Gazza's on-field partner-in-crime Beppe Signori (an, er, interesting character to say the least as Richardson describes in the podcast) topping the 1992-93 Serie A scoring charts with 26 goals.
That debut campaign, saw a then-25-year-old Gazza score four goals in 22 appearances. He set up a few more as well, like in this thrashing of Ancona:
But that was the height of his achievements in Rome. In the next two seasons before he departed for Rangers in 1995, he would make just 21 more Serie A appearances and score twice as injuries and weight issues hampered him.
However, it was a broken tibia and fibula sustained in a training ground challenge with future Lazio, Milan and Italy great Alessandro Nesta (just 16 at the time) which would really bring the curtain down on any hope of a dolce vita in Italy.
This free-kick against Cagliari was one of his high points in 1993-94 - along with the Emperor Nero-style celebration
Yet he was still popular as a character among the Lazio fanbase despite never reaching his full potential as his final anecdote from the post-Nesta tackle showcases.
"I was loved by the Lazio fans and they wanted to kill Nesta and I told them to leave him alone."
Either way, Gazza's spell in Italy paved the way for Gazzetta Football Italia to leave anyone who passed through the '90s with the flavour of calcio italiano and 'GOOOOAAAALLLLLLLLAZZZZZZZIIIIOOOOO'!
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