Death of Paolo Rossi: from Prato to the roof of the world with Boniperti and Bearzot

A back pain, diagnostic tests. In these cases we think of a bulging disc, a hernia, nothing irreparable. Then the terrible verdict: lung cancer. Paolo Rossi, our Pablito from Argentina ’78 and Spain ’82, left in no time, carried away by a bad and treacherous evil. His colleagues at Rai, the television for which he was a columnist, were close to him. They sent him motivational videos to support him in battle. Unfortunately this 2020 does not give truce. Two weeks after Diego Maradona, goodbye also to Rossi. A terrible sequence, first the undisputed king of Mexico ’86, then the cover man of Mundial di Spagna ’82.

THE BEGINNINGS

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Born in Prato, near Florence, Rossi takes his first steps in Santa Lucia. He immediately prevailed as an agile, cunning striker with an extraordinary sense of goal. Ambrosiana and Cattolica Virtus are his other teams, until Juve watchers noticed him. In Turin they die in their youth. He is a winger and it is Osvaldo Bagnoli who sees in him the qualities of the center forward. It occurs in 1975 in Como, where Paolo is on loan. Juve then returns him to Vicenza and here he becomes great. Despite repeated knee problems, three menisci were removed, GB Fabbri cast him definitively as number 9 and Paolo Rossi beat the 1977-78 top scorer with 24 goals. In the summer, the sensational news: Rossi is jointly owned by Vicenza and Juve and Giussy Farina, the president of the Venetian club, wins it in the envelopes for more than two billion lire. Meanwhile, Enzo Bearzot launches him to the national team and Paolo becomes Pablito at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, a World Cup in which he scores enthusiastic goals and sends Bettega to the net by making a spectacular triangle against host Argentina.

THE JOURNEY AND REDEMPTION

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Everything looks beautiful and perfect, but the shadow of the gambling scandal hangs over the life and career of Rossi’s, who has since moved to Perugia. They disqualify him for two years in sports justice, while he is acquitted by ordinary justice. The soccer judges make him pay for an interview of a few moments with one of Totonero’s promoters, a brief dialogue on the afternoon of a retreat, a situation in which Rossi understands the problem and quickly escapes. Later one of the parties will admit that Rossi did not agree on anything or had taken money, and that he had not gone beyond a few words of circumstance. At best, do not report. In his two years of unemployment, two people believe in him: Giampiero Boniperti, who takes him back to Juve, and Enzo Bearzot, the coach of the national team. Bearzot “questions” him about what happened and is convinced of the boy’s good faith. He defends him against everything and everyone, and calls him for the World Cup in Spain. In the first phase Rossi is underweight, has no muscle tone, walks on the pitch. Criticism kills him, but Bearzot endures and is rewarded. Pablito explodes in the second match of the second phase, on July 5, 1982, in Sarrià de Barcelona, ​​in Italy-Brazil 3-2. Get an epic hat-trick, which will become the title of one of his books: “I Made Brazil Cry.” Then two more goals against Poland in the semi-finals and a goal against then-West Germany in the Madrid final. Italy world champion. “I looked at the crowd, at my colleagues and inside I felt a base of bitterness – Pablito wrote years later -. Now you have to stop time now. I would never experience such a moment again. Never again in all my life. Sacrosanct truth: having reached the zenith, Pablito, thanks to the dancing knees, can only go down. Juve, Milan and then the last stage, in Verona. Later, a good career as a commentator, between Sky, Mediaset and Rai, and an entrepreneurial activity, a farmhouse in the province of Arezzo. Now death, which hurts like a stab in the heart. But Pablo is alive, in the eternal memory of that afternoon in Sarrià. Pablito forever.