Of all the Italian names to have graced English shores, Benito Carbone is one that you may well have forgotten.
He arrived at Sheffield Wednesday in 1996 amid the “European invasion” of the Premier League. The English game underwent drastic changes in the mid-90s when players from all across Europe – in particularly Italy – came flocking to the Premier League, which was aiming to become the best league in the continent by hosting players from all over it.
Carbone then was one of a number of players to arrive at this time, and one of a number of Italian’s too. Paolo Di Canio and Gianfranco Zola were the biggest of those names, and their English stints overshadowed Carbone’s brief, but still memorable time in the Premier League. The now 48-year-old came through the Torino academy, but made his name in Italy with Napoli and then Roy Hodgson’s Inter before Sheffield Wednesday broke their transfer record with the £3 million signing of Carbone.
With Wednesday, Carbone was a sporadic player. In terms of his style, he was very much like Zola – he was a winger-turned-forward who could score these stupendous goals and whatnot, but he went through a lot of dry spells at Hillsborough. He scored a total of 25 goals in 96 league games for the Owls before leaving for Aston Villa in 1999. The Wednesday fans are a passionate bunch and they really warmed to Carbone, but his departure from the club was allegedly down to Carbone not being able to integrate with his new teammates.
“At the beginning, it wasn’t easy, the culture was very different and I made the mistake to behave as an Italian in England. I had to mix with other players, learn English culture and live as an English guy, but I did not understand that at that time. On the pitch everything was wonderful. I have special memories about that period, and even today I have some fans that greet me on my social network accounts. I love England, I love English football, I love the game, the atmosphere and the fans,” Carbone told Planet Football in a 2019 interview.
It was a well-known fact that Carbone didn’t touch alcohol at the time and that factor apparently made it very difficult for him to bond with his teammates. Footballers then, especially English players in the Premier League, had much more of a drinking culture than they seemingly do today and a lot of foreign players who arrived at this time struggled to adapt to this change in football culture. Carbone though would prevail much more in his second season at the club, when his Italian compatriot Paolo Di Canio arrived at Hillsborough.
Di Canio had started his much-publicized love affair with British football the season before with Celtic, joining from Milan. He had a good season in Scotland before he stepped south of the border, forming a formidable front-two at Wednesday with Carbone. The impact that Di Canio’s arrival made on Carbone was incredible – he looked a good player in his first season, but a completely new player in his second.
He’d been given a new lease of life but that would only last a season-and-a-half, before Di Canio moved on to West Ham United early into the 1998-99 season – Carbone coincidentally went on to have his best scoring season for the Owls, scoring 12 in all competitions and finishing as the club’s top-scorer. But Carbone would leave Wednesday after three seasons, joining Aston Villa in 1999 for an undisclosed fee as tensions surrounding Carbone’s Wednesday contract heightened, and apparent dressing room fractions were continuing to affect his stay, more so after Di Canio’s departure.
With Villa, Carbone would go on to have a successful first season, reaching the final of the 2000 FA Cup where he’d scored five goals in the run-up to Wembley, but he couldn’t help his side avoid a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea, courtesy of a Roberto Di Matteo goal. Following one decent, but still somewhat subdued second season with Villa, Carbone was linked with a number of English and Italian clubs – including Fiorentina and Everton – but he chose instead to join Bradford City who’d narrowly missed relegation into the second-tier the season before.
A third club in England and a third fan-base who grew to love Carbone – he did prove to be something of a cult figure wherever he lay his boots, and he scored 10 goals for the Bantams as they were relegated from the Premier League in the 2000-01 season. Carbone spent loan-spells with both Derby County and Middlesbrough during his second season at Bradford, but left for Italy in 2002.
“Obviously, Sheffield is in my heart because I stayed there for three years and we did a great job, but I can’t forget my Aston Villa experience and the FA Cup at Wembley, even if we lost. Everywhere I went in England the fans loved me, at Bradford, Derby County, Middlesbrough. I remember everything, the fans’ passion, the thrill when I went on the pitch. I’d like to breathe that atmosphere again.”
Bradford were reportedly paying Carbone £40,000 per week and that combined with their relegation from the Premier League was “crippling” the club financially. Chairman Geoffrey Richmond claimed the Carbone would be the man to “bust” Bradford City if he remained and kept claiming his £40,000 per week, and the Italian – who’d been put in a rather unfair position at the newly relegated club – gave back over £3 million of his own money before departing, citing that he didn’t want to be the man responsible for Bradford City’s financial woes.
Carbone wouldn’t play in England again, instead he saw out his career immediately after Bradford City with spells at Como, Parma, Catanzaro, Vicenza, a brief season in Australia with Sydney FC, before finishing his career on a three-year stint at Pavia, where he’d scored 27 goals in 80 league games. It’s true that wherever Carbone went, people grew fonder and fonder of him as the time drew past. The fact that he was teetotal shows a lot about the character he was, and when he played alongside Di Canio at Sheffield Wednesday and Stan Collymore at Bradford, we saw the kind of footballer he was.
His time in England though always seemed to have a factor that was holding him back, whether that was being unable to fit in with his teammates, or being held accountable for an entire club’s dissolution – his Bradford City treatment was nothing short of criminal, and he proved to be the bigger man by walking away and effectively saving the football club.
Carbone capped what was a respectable career in Italy, even if he did fail to win any silverware during his time in England. He later said that leaving Italy for England was the biggest mistake of his career, but leaving Wednesday was “even bigger.” He’ll long be remembered by the fans of those we played for though. Carbone had an affinity with English football fans, and at the time they loved the excitement of Italian footballers, the eccentricity and mystery of them – Carbone was certainly one of those.