MILAN (AP) — Italian sculptor who designed FIFA world cup For the trophy, we wanted to capture three sports emotions in one spiral format: athletes’ struggles, fans’ joy, and moments of victory.
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Here’s what you need to know about soccer’s most coveted award.
The World Cup trophy was designed in Milan
When Brazil won their third World Cup in 1970 and took permanent possession of the original trophy, Silvio Gazzaniga designed the trophy in his studio in Milan’s Brera district after FIFA put out a call for new designs.
The design has become familiar to generations of World Cup fans and features two figures spiraling toward a sphere representing the Earth.
“When he started designing the cup, he sketched a huge number of drawings, but finally he began to develop the idea of representing the world and the symbol of its ascending spiral of two DNAs,” said the designer’s son, Giorgio Gazzaniga, who was a teenager at the time.
Gazzaniga, a sculptor and trophy designer who passed away in 2016, worked for GDE Bertoni, where he created some of the world’s most prestigious trophies, including the UEFA Cup and the European Super Cup.
My previous trophy was stolen and I could never get it back.
The first World Cup trophy, introduced for the inaugural tournament in 1930, depicted the Greek goddess Nike and was known as the Jules Rimet Trophy, named after the tournament’s founder. After Brazil became the first country to win the World Cup three times and took permanent ownership of the original, FIFA commissioned a replacement.
According to FIFA, the Jules Rimet Trophy has been stolen twice, once while on public display in England in 1966, and later recovered by a dog named Pickles under a hedge in south London. The watch was stolen again from the Brazilian Football Federation headquarters in 1983, after it came into permanent possession of Brazil. It has not yet been recovered and is widely believed to have melted.
Gazzaniga’s design depicts the struggle for victory
More than 50 proposals were submitted, but only Gazzaniga presented a complete model. This allowed the jury to evaluate both the format and the story it tells, the son said.
“There is a world that is better than anything, and there is the effort of the athlete, and there is the movement of the athlete in the metal, and the body of the athlete is rugged and rugged because it has suffered, it has had to fight, it has struggled for victory,” the younger Gazzaniga said.
“That victory is expressed through an arm that resembles the wings of victory, capturing not only the victory of the athlete but also the joy of the fans,” he said.
Gazzaniga’s family has preserved his office, including drawings, original prototypes submitted to FIFA and wax casts, in a new location on the outskirts of Milan.
World Cup winners won’t get their original trophy
The official World Cup trophy, which is lifted by the victorious captain at the end of the final, is 36 centimeters (14 inches) high, cast in 18-karat gold, and rests on a pedestal featuring two rings of green malachite, symbolizing the stadium.
After the tournament, the original trophy will be returned to FIFA and will be kept at its Swiss headquarters between World Cups. The winning team gets to take home a gold-plated replica.
FIFA no longer allows three-time winners to keep their originals.
The World Cup marks the 14th time that Gazzaniga’s design has been used, and FIFA has decided to keep the trophy in use until at least the 2038 tournament, according to Gazzaniga’s website.
The young Gazzaniga still vividly remembers watching the 1974 World Cup final between West Germany and the Netherlands with his family at home. This was the first time his father’s trophy had been presented at a World Cup.
“The real explosion of joy was when the German team lifted the cup in Munich and the whole stadium erupted,” he said. “That was the moment when the object became an icon.”
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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here
