"PABLITO" turned 40 yesterday. For the uninitiated, "Pablito" is Paolo Rossi, goal poacher par excellence, leading scorer in the 1982 World Cup and one of the inspirational figures in Italy's against the odds triumph in Spain that year.

Nine years after his retirement, Paolo Rossi is a soccer "drop out." In other words, he has no professional connection with soccer, an exception to the rule which decrees that famous ex players hang on in there as coaches, talent scouts, managers, TV Pundits or indeed as anything that guarantees a link with a community they are neither able nor willing to forget.

The point is made all the more vividly when one takes a "Where Are They Now?" look at the 22 players who made up the 1982 Italian squad.

Remarkably, four of them - Franco Baresi, Pietro Vierchwood (both AC Milan), Giuseppe Bergomi (Internazionale) and Daniele Massaro (Shimuzu, Japan) - are still playing at the ages of 36, 37, 32 and 35, respectively.

It is rather less surprising to discover that no fewer than four of the 82 squad - Antonio Cabrini, Fulvio Collovati, Giovanni Galli and Giuseppe Dossena - all work as TV pundits, while among the remainder there are eight club directors or presidents (including Lazio president Dino Zoff), one club manager (Marco Tardelli at second division Cesena), one goalkeeper coach and one youth team coach.

Furthermore, the late Gaetano Scirea, captain libero of that World Cup winning team, had already on to the role of scout Juventus when he died in a car, accident in Poland in September 1989. Scirea had gone Poland for Juventus to on future European opponents.

Unlike most of group, then, Rossi is football. He now lives Vicenza, northern Italy where, along with a partner, he runs real estate business. One year ago, he separated from his wife, Simonetta, but he remains in close contact with her and he sees his 14 year old son, Alessandro, daily. As regards the real estate business, Rossi claims not to have become a millionaire, in sharp contrast to his playing days, saying: "In the year that we won the World Cup, my salary with Juventus was worth about £57,000 per annum, before tax. Tardelli, Cabrini and myself went to Boniperti (club president) to look for a rise .... and he gave us an extra £2,300. Now, people earn £1 million per season."

Rossi may have broken with soccer but his choice of home town has everything to do with his former profession. For it was as a 20 year old striker for Vicenza that Rossi exploded on to the Italian scene in the 76-77 season, scoring 21 Serie A goals. In the next year, he did even better, scoring 24 league goals and earning himself a surprise call up from Enzo Bearzot for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina where his penalty area stealth and striker's sixth sense all won him immediate international acclaim.

Four years later, Enzo Bearzot kept the faith, recalling Rossi to the World Cup squad on the eve of the finals notwithstanding the fact that he had played only three league games in the previous two years because of a two year suspension for (indirect) involvement in a betting scandal. Rossi repaid Bearzot's loyalty more than handsomely.

Like many before him, Rossi was eventually forced to quit by injury problems. Having played an important part in the Juventus side which won the illfated 1985 European Champions Cup at the Heysel Stadium, he appeared to still rank as a valid, world class performer, capable of holding his own in the lofty company of Platini, Boniek, Tardelli, Scirea etc.

That 85 season, however, was to prove a swansong. Although he joined AC Milan in the summer, he was already in physical trouble. He managed to play 40 league games in his final two seasons with Milan and then Verona, scoring only six goals, but he did so with difficulty and in pain from much operated knees.

Doctors who examined him in those last two seasons advised him to quit and quit soon or risk serious complications in later life. At the age of 31 and after a brief, but intense career, he quit.

As an outsider, Rossi looks at today's soccer without much enthusiasm. He sees Vicenza play most of their home games in Serie A but otherwise he avoids the game, ignoring the wall to wall TV coverage and contenting himself with the occasional read of Gazzetta Dello Sport.

"I don't much like the soccer you see these days. All the sides play to a pattern, closing down on each other and playing the game in a 20 metre space that squeezes out talented, imaginative players.

"There are obviously talented players still around - Zola, Baggio, Weah, Savicevic, Del Piero etc - but they need space. Someone needs to set them free."