Massimiliano Capuzzoni (Milan, 17 April 1969 - Taormina, 5 August 1995) was an Italian rugby union player. He played as a flanker.
Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with the city proper having a population of 1,395,274 while its metropolitan city has a population of 3,259,835. Its continuously built-up urban area has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 over 1,891 square kilometres. The wider Milan metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that extends over central Lombardy and eastern Piedmont and which counts an estimated total population of 7.5 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and the 54th largest in the world. Milan served as capital of the Western Roman Empire from 286 to 402 and the Duchy of Milan during the medieval period and early modern age.
Taormina is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy. Taormina has been a tourist destination since the 19th century. Its beaches on the Ionian sea, including that of Isola Bella, are accessible via an aerial tramway built in 1992, and via highways from Messina in the north and Catania in the south. On May 26–27, 2017 Taormina hosted the 43rd G7 summit.
Capuzzoni played for A. S. Rugby Milano, where he started his career in 1981/82, at 12 years old, in the first categories. He joined the first team in 1987/88, aged 18 years old, and would remain in Rugby Milano until 1990/91. He moved to Rugby Lyons Piacenza for the two following seasons, 1991/92 to 1992/93. Capuzzoni returned to Milan, this time to play for Amatori Rugby Milano, from 1993/94 to 1994/95. He won the Italian Championship and the Cup of Italy in 1994/95, in what would be the last season of his career.
Rugby Lyons Piacenza are an Italian rugby union club currently competing in Serie A. They are based in Piacenza in Emilia Romagna.
Amatori Rugby Milano are an ex Italian rugby union team based in Milan founded in 1927 and disbanded in 2011.
He had 2 caps for Italy, from 1993 to 1995, without scoring. He was called for the 1995 Rugby World Cup but never left the bench. [1]
The Italy national rugby union team is the representative national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Italy. The team is known as gli Azzurri. Savoy blue is the common colour of the national teams representing Italy, as it is the traditional colour of the royal House of Savoy which reigned over the Kingdom of Italy from 1860 to 1946.
The 1995 Rugby World Cup was the third Rugby World Cup. It was hosted and won by South Africa, and was the first Rugby World Cup in which every match was held in one country.
Capuzzoni was still a promising player when he died in the sequence of a diving accident in Taormina, Sicily, on 5 August 1995, aged only 26 years old. He was paid tribute five days later at the Mario Giuriati Stadium, of Rugby Milano, his first team, in a ceremony attended by fans of his three teams.
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions, in Southern Italy along with surrounding minor islands, officially referred to as Regione Siciliana.
In a tribute to Capuzzoni, the Capuzzoni Memorial takes place every year since 1996, as a tournament held in Milan or Piacenza, between the three teams where he played.
Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, the capital of the eponymous province. The etymology is long-standing, tracing an origin from the Latin verb placēre, "to please." In French, and occasionally in English, it is called Plaisance. The name means a "pleasant abode", or as James Boswell reported some of the etymologists of his time to have translated it, "comely". This was a name "of good omen."
