“It’s not that we took strange things, there was anti-doping and we did it every Sunday. But we need to see if these supplements have not caused long-term damage”. These are the words of the former footballer Dino Baggio a Tv7 a few days after the death (from pancreatic cancer) of Gianluca Vialli: the doubts about the “substances” of the eighties and nineties were then also raised by Florin Raducioiu, a former striker from Bari, Verona, Milan and Brescia. Raducioiu wore the Rondinelle jersey in the 1992/1993 season and from 1998 to 2000.
Pink drip before matches
“We were dripping with a pink liquid,” Raducioiu told Romanian TV Orange Sportas reported by the Gazzetta dello Sport – and we didn’t know what we were getting. We have always been told that it was about vitamins, about glucose. We used to drip with this pink liquid on the eve of matches, I remember it perfectly. And in Milan we took other things, even pills. I will call the doctor in Brescia to find out what medicines I have taken”.
“I phoned the doctor”
And so Raducioiu did: “I phoned Dr. Fabio De Nard – he said to Gazzetta dello Sport – who was then working in Brescia and headed the medical staff. In that cocktail that was administered to us in the vein there were vitamin B, vitamin C and a substance to reduce the process of muscle fatigue. The pink color depended on vitamin B. I felt reassured: we were taking supplements, substances against free radicals, all absolutely legal”.
