You have to be fairly old, or Italian, or to have joined the soccer cognoscenti long before that sport made serious inroads around here, to realize the brief but somehow lasting impact of one Salvatore Schillaci, who died last week. Maybe you had to be there, at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

He was this poor kid from Sicily, subjected to longstanding regional prejudices in his own country, who nevertheless came to prove the aphorism that “fame in Italy lies in the back of the opponent’s net.” He had entered that World Cup a bench-warmer, a last-minute edition to the home team roster, yet emerged a national hero, scoring a tournament-leading six goals—five of them game-winners—in leading Italy’s Azzurri to a third-place finish.

A comedian in Florence named Roberto Benigni had snidely declared, in the midst of Schillaci’s flash-in-the-pan heroics, that “a Cameroon-Italy final in the World Cup would mean Schillaci could play for either team.” The not-quite-one-of-us slur. But Schillaci—“Toto” to friends and ultimately to an entire nation—is being remembered as the very face of that international event, the unquestioned star. “Toto was tutto,” James Horncastle of The Athletic wrote. “An everyman who, through sheer determination, seemed capable of everything. He showed that even the fleeting can paradoxically endure.”

With Schillaci’s death at 59—a relatively fleeting life, like his soccer masterpiece—that month-long tournament is being fondly recalled by Italians as the summer of the Notti Magiche—the Magic Nights—mostly because of his lightning-strike scores that set off gleeful, frenzied celebrations by fans and Toto alike.

He was a workingman’s hero who had spent eight years on lower-division pro teams in Sicily, was virtually unknown before—and essentially disappeared from the national team after—that World Cup.

He was 25 at the time, and acknowledged “living through a moment of sheer magic. I remember very very well when Italy won the World Cup in 1982 [when he was 17]. I was one of the fans running up and down the street screaming and yelling and waving a flag.” Only to become the spark for the same 1990 response, streets filled with fans, honking horns, brandishing Italian flags and chanting “Forza Italia!”

That tournament’s primary essence was to have set the record for the lowest average scoring per game in Cup history (2.21 goals), with a championship final—West Germany over Argentina, 1-0, on a penalty kick—that the New York Times’ Rory Smith called “perhaps the ugliest in living memory.” There was the famous Cup-associated debut concert of the Three Tenors supergroup in Rome and the goofy Lego-like tournament mascot, “Ciao.” Mostly, there was Toto, punching holes in mountains, bringing out the Roman candle in the tifosi—Italy’s soccer fanatics.

So, the Schillaci Papers:

Italy, a strong pre-tournament title favorite, had its artistic, flowing play on full display in its opening game against Austria but still was stuck in a scoreless tie when coach Azeglio Vicini brought Toto off the bench with just 16 minutes to play. Four minutes later, Schillaci leaped in the goalmouth to meet a high crossing pass from Gianluca Vialli, snapping his twisting body to the right to head in the winner.

Eyes wide, arms raised, Schillaci mirrored the shocked, awed reaction throughout Rome’s Olympic Stadium. Italian fans, after all, suddenly had perfection to go with the beauty they expect from their team, though soccer doesn’t necessarily work that way.

Crew cut and slightly stocky as opposed to most teammates’ dashing, long-haired look—and not in the starting lineup until Italy’s third game—Schillaci again scored the second-half winner against Czechoslovakia. And conjured the decisive goals against Ireland and Uruguay, and the opening goal in the semifinal before Argentina’s eventual shootout victory.

He was all over television. Staring from the front page of every newspaper. In his hometown of Palermo, Schillaci’s father was hoisted on neighbors’ shoulders and paraded around the square. When the 123 entrants of that year’s Miss Italia competition were polled on which national team player they’d most like to go on a date with, 87 picked Schillaci. “He enriches his performances with masterpieces of goals,” Vicini said of Schillaci.

You had to be there.