He may have arrived on Teesside for a record transfer fee, with a Champions League winning pedigree, but Fabrizio Ravanelli-a player aptly nicknamed ‘The White Feather’-knew how to ruffle them according to his former manager.
The £7 million forward will forever be remembered as one of Middlesbrough’s most prolific and talented goal scorers. He scored 31 goals during that incomparable 1996/97 season that saw Boro reach two cup finals, only to be relegated from The Premier League in the same season. But former manager Bryan Robson has revealed in his autobiography ‘Robbo’, that the predatory Italian striker was something of a nightmare to deal with on occasions.
Selfish traits
Speaking in Chapter 14, which documented Robson’s time at Middlesbrough and was entitled ‘Buzzing Boro’, the man referred to in his playing days as ‘Captain Marvel’ told of the start of the issues with Ravanelli and the stream of articles that began to surface in the media regarding the Italian’s apparent displeasure at the state of Boro’s training facilities, Robson said, “I don’t know whether Ravanelli was misquoted sometimes, but his name appeared on a number of articles about that. So I said to him, ‘Hang on, you knew it was like this, that we were having a new training ground built.’
“He’d seen the plans, he knew exactly what the situation was. That’s why he used to drive me daft. We were moving to a lovely area, where we would have the best facilities in the country.”
Middlesbrough fans will recall the training ground skirmish between him and right-back Neil Cox-incidentally Boro’s first Million pound player-on the morning of the FA Cup Final. As it turns out, Cox was not the only player that the fiery forward took issue with.
“He started getting selfish on the pitch.” Admitted Robson.
“He was all, ‘Me, me, me.’ For instance, he wouldn’t help Mikkel Beck, a young striker we signed from Fortuna Cologne. He would never encourage Mikkel or do anything to boost his confidence, which was what the lad needed.
“All he did was knock him, saying he was hopeless and generally putting him down. He was a poor team player in that sense.”
It seems even worse to hear that when you consider that Danish forward Beck had to go through a lengthy ordeal in the courts as a result of some contractual dispute to secure his dream move to Boro.
Unpopular with teammates
It is difficult to ignore the contribution Ravanelli made for Boro, he was a quality operator and a winner. His own personal commitment on the pitch can’t be called into question, but football is a team game and Robson needed a sense of togetherness from his group, which despite having a group of individuals from all over the world, he largely had, but not from Ravanelli.
Robson added, “He had a fantastic left-foot and scored 31 goals for us in the 1996/97 season, but he just didn’t have the personality to make him a popular player. He wasn’t well liked within the group and was the only one who didn’t really hit it off with the other lads.”
It will be of no surprise to learn that the hit-man, sometimes known as ‘Fab Rav’ was an emotional ball of passion whilst playing, you could see it on the pitch. The yelling, throwing the arms up, the stereotypical Italian hand gestures, it was part of his make-up. But it is interesting to hear an insight into how that spilled over into player-to-player relationships and how detrimental it was to the team’s efforts overall.
Nevertheless, Fabrizio Ravanelli the player was one heck of a footballer. He came from winning the Champion’s League with Juventus, straight to Boro. It was a real statement signing that will always be talked about in the club’s history and rubber stamped Boro’s arrival back in the big time.
Imagine Boro going out now and signing a first team forward from Manchester City or Real Madrid! It was a crazy time of unheralded events.