Pierluigi Marzorati

Pierluigi Marzorati was an Italian basketball playmaker who starred for Pallacanestro Cantù and on the Italian national team. In the 1970s and 80s, he was considered by US coaches as “the most American of Italian players”.

Marzorati made his début in Serie A in 1969. He was with Cantù for 22 seasons, playing in 692 games, and scoring 8,659 points. Marzorati won two Italian titles (1975, 1981), two European Champions Cups (1982-83), four European Cup Winners’ Cup (1977-79, 1981), four Korac Cups (1973-75, 1991), and two Intercontinental Cups (1975, 1982).

With the national team Marzorati earned 278 international caps, scoring 2,209 points. He won a silver medal at the 1980 Moskva Olympic Games and led Italy to the 1983 European Championship in Nantes. He added three bronze medals at the 1971, 1975, and 1985 European Championships. Fifteen years later, in 2006, the call of the parquet prompted the 54-year-old civil engineer to return to the court – on 8 October with two minutes against Benetton Treviso, he became the oldest player ever to play in the top flight.

Marzorati was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007. In May 2015, a plaque was dedicated to him in the Walk of Fame of Italian sport in Roma, reserved for former Italian athletes who have distinguished themselves internationally.