Dimentico sempre i nomi quando mi presento

What does “bomber” mean in Italian slang?

When this speaker forgets someone’s name, he covers by calling them caro, carissimo, grande, and sometimes bomber. In football, a bomber is a prolific goal-scorer — the English word borrowed whole into Italian sports commentary. Informally, it’s spread far beyond the pitch: a fond, joking way to call someone a standout, a top performer, without needing to know their actual name.

The borrowing runs one level deeper than most English loanwords in Italian, since bomber itself is British slang for a striker before Italian picked it up. It’s a good example of how a very specific piece of sports vocabulary can drift into everyday, affectionate small talk.