Massimo Bonini

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“Michel, are you smoking?”. “Don’t worry, pay rather attention that Bonini is prevented from smoking”

—Michel Platini

Massimo Bonini (born 13 October 1959 at San Marino) is regarded by many as the best football player in the history of the Republic of San Marino. He was a midfielder who played for A.C. Bellaria Igea Marina, A.C. Forlì, A.C. Cesena, Juventus F.C. and Bologna F.C. 1909 during his career.

Most significantly, Bonini was a Juventus player between 1981 and 1988, in which he played 296 matches and scored 6 goals. He won 3 Scudetti, 1 Italian Cup, 1 European Champion Clubs' Cup, 1 Cup Winners' Cup, 1 European Super Cup and 1 Intercontinental Cup (or World Club Championship). He is the only San Marino football player to have won the European Cup. Plus, both he and the motorcycle rider Manuel Poggiali are the only sportsmen from San Marino to have won a world sport competition.

Since the San Marino Football Federation was not officially recognised by UEFA until 1990, players from San Marino were assimilated to Italian players. For this reason Massimo Bonini was entitled to play for the Italian Football Federation and actually played for the Italian Under-21 football team. Since he always refused to give up the citizenship of San Marino, he had to wait until 1990 in order to play for San Marino’s first team, wearing 19 full caps since then. He was also briefly the national coach of San Marino’ national team after retirement.

For its 50th anniversary in 2004, UEFA asked each of its 52 member associations to nominate one player as the single most outstanding player of the period 1954-2003, and Bonini was chosen as the Golden Player of San Marino by the San Marino Football Federation in November 2003 [1].