Claudio Caniggia (1967) Argentinean football player
Every football fan will remember the Caniggia of 1990. The longhaired Argentinean starred in the Italian Serie A and led his national team together with Diego Maradona to the final of the World Cup. The Germans ruined the party as they always do in football, and from that moment on it was downhill for Claudio Paul Caniggia, born in Buenos Aires.
Only interrupted by a short spell during the 1994 World Cup, his prime football life was pretty much over. He played at Benfica, Boca Juniors and Atalanta Bergamo since, but the magic (especially of his AS Roma period) was gone. Where did it go wrong? Dun time, dun coke, dun dee was a Scottish newspaper's answer, which was more than a pun of words: Caniggia's latest career in three terms – prison, drugs and a miniature club. Some years ago, Claudio and his wife were arrested in American city Tampa for alleged theft. They had to spend the night in jail. Just like his fellow countryman Maradona, he also has a drug history.
Like most prominent Argentinean football players, Caniggia was attached to football agent Guillermo Copolla. The Italian Argentine wanted to prevent that his players would sit at home all day with nothing to do than watching television. So he organized huge parties with drugs, loud music and group sex. It must have been one of these occasions Caniggia ended up with his nose in a pile of cocaine for the first time. In 1989 he failed a drug test, was not convicted, but after another bad test four years later, he got suspended for 13 months.
The following sentence is no joke, I repeat, no joke. From
today, former World Cup star Claudio Caniggia officially is
a Dundee FC player.
(Local Scottish newspaper)
The player who collected 47 caps for
Argentina was suddenly under contract at tiny
Dundee FC (
Scotland) in
2000. His signing evidently caused massive interest and he showed that the quality was still there with a dramatic and expert injury time goal on his home debut. His technical abilities earned Caniggia a transfer to a top club. At
Glasgow Rangers he played his last match in October 2002, before moving to Qatar in '03 to wrap up his career with a lot of money.