Lorenzo Insigne’s style of scoring goals with a right-foot curler became known as the ‘tiraggiro’ and even made it into the Italian dictionary.
It is one word that is three different words smashed together, namely ‘tiro a giro’ – curling shot.
The word had originally been coined by Napoli supporters, who also more specifically used ‘destraggiro’ – right-foot curler.
The Neapolitan cadence making it sound more like ‘tir a ggir’ is also why the words became crammed together without the extra o’s.
It became more and more popular with Insigne’s performances for Italy at UEFA EURO 2020, especially after his goal in that style against Belgium in the quarter-final.
There was even a fan at Wembley Stadium during the Final against England who had an Italy jersey with ‘Tiraggir’ printed on the back.
Even Insigne’s teammates kept using the word to describe his goals.
Now ‘Tiraggiro’ has made it into the Treccani Dictionary, the Italian version of the Oxford English Dictionary, as a neologism.
Some Juventus fans are slightly irritated that the dictionary entry specifically describes this as an Insigne-type goal, seeing as Alessandro Del Piero had trademark curling strikes decades earlier.
However, that was known as a ‘gol alla Del Piero’ (a Del Piero style goal), and did not manage to become a single word.
È arrivato anche lui… #ita #FinalEuro2020 #ItaliaInghilterra #Wembley pic.twitter.com/0MlwvjCjyF
— Michele Criscitiello (@MCriscitiello) July 11, 2021