Paolo Rossi and the unforgettable hat trick: Italy legend's 1982 World Cup glory will endure 

The reason the death of Paolo Rossi seemed to strike so hard outside of his native Italy on Thursday was simply because we all remember it. Not him, specifically. But it. That match. That hat-trick.

July 5 1982. Italy 3 Brazil 2. One of the stand-out World Cup matches of our age.

Rossi, the Italian striker with hair like coal, pretty much won it on his own. Or at least that is how it seems. That is how we will always remember it.

Rossi only scored 20 goals for his country but that doesn’t matter.

Nine came in World Cup matches spread over the 1978 and 1982 tournaments and three came on that stunning early evening in Barcelona, a night two footballing behemoths provided us with a contest to enrich a generation.

If one of football’s purposes is to provide glamour and romance then this was definitely one of its better days.

Brazil were a team built in the nation’s finest traditions. Zico, Eder, Falcao and Socrates. Italy — having progressed from their group on the back of three rather tepid draws — had just beaten Argentina but were not expected to do the same to Brazil in order to reach the semi-finals.

However Rossi, aged 25, elevated himself to almost mythical status in his home country with two goals in the first half and then the winner with 15 minutes to go.

They were not the most memorable goals of the night. Falcao’s screaming shot from the edge of the penalty area — Brazil’s second goal of the game — always leads the highlight reels. But it was Rossi who won the game and sent the favourites home.

The first goals of his tournament, they came with Rossi wearing a lucky pendant bought by a friend for pennies from a street hawker on Las Ramblas the day before.

Designed to bring an end to his barren run, Rossi didn’t remove it until he left Spain and kept it at his home until his death this week at the age of 64.

Having followed his hat-trick with two more goals as Italy beat Poland in the semi-final, another was to come — his country’s first in the 3-1 final win against Germany.

Six goals in as many days changed the course of the Italian’s life. They won him the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer and, subsequently, that year’s Ballon D’Or. In an interview in 2014, Rossi described the defeat of Brazil as ‘the match of the century’ and he had many reasons to cherish it.

For example, he would not even have been at the tournament at all had a three-year ban for his involvement in a match-fixing scandal not been reduced to two.

A Tuscan and a keen painter, Rossi and Italian coach Enzo Bearzot would often meet late at night in the team hotel. ‘We would talk about art,’ recalled Rossi.

Always a goalscorer, Rossi was nevertheless not regularly prolific. But the flames of his career burned most brightly during a spell at Juventus in the 1980s. Between 1981 and 1985, he won two Serie A titles, a Coppa Italia, European Cup, European Cup-winners’ Cup and a Super Cup.

In Italy on Thursday they mourned the one they called ‘Pablito’ and the memories he took with him.

Italian sports paper La Gazetta dello Sport described Rossi as ‘the one who beat Zico’s Brazil, Maradona’s Argentina, Boniek’s Poland and Rummenigge’s Germany’. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would ‘be in our hearts for ever’.

In sport some moments fade from memory quicker than we would ever imagine.

Some linger. Only a few remain pin-sharp and as vibrant as Thursday. 

Barcelona in July. Brazilian yellow versus Italian blue. A match to light up a tournament and one man’s name written right across it. That one we never forget.