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This cursed year seems to want to tear us away from the life that we have lived in every moment of joy. Take the color out of the days when we were happy, when we hugged. In this black and white world, masked and distant, even the memory of joy becomes almost subversive, unnatural.
For Paolo Rossi, thanks to Paolo Rossi, the Italians experienced the most important moment of collective joy in their memory. Four years before Bearzot’s marvelous national team won the World Cup in Spain, Aldo Moro was kidnapped and murdered, two years before the Bologna station exploded with its load of mangled bodies. They were years of lead. Not only the one with which bullets were made and with great ease they stuck in people’s legs or hearts, but also what weighed on the environment of our lives that had become gray, dark, heavy. Then that summer came, the summer of 1982. And everything changes.
Paolo Rossi was the symbol of that magnificent sports company. For him too, those that had just passed had been years of lead. His magnificent career as a scorer interrupted by the soccer betting scandal, the disqualification, the mortification of one of the many public pillories in this country. He returned one day in May 1982, after two years in which he had been detained. Him, with his slim body, his slender legs and his talent for scoring. Torn, after the years with Lanerossi and Perugia, with the Juventus jersey, that unexpectedly blue day. Torn and sign. Punctual as clockwork. An old Friulian, with a sculpted face, was waiting for him. Enzo Bearzot, coach of the national team, had lost it to the unfavorable Europeans of 1980, but he did not want the same to happen for the World Cup in Spain. He had waited for him, aware of the wonders experienced with him in the center of the attack in Argentina, giving Paolo serenity and security.
The national was the strongest I remember seeing. However, on the stent removal round and Paul seemed harnessed. No goals in three games, a rarity for him who always scored anyway. Not being physically powerful he made up for it with an innate ability to always be where he needed to be, it seemed that the ball was looking for him to be placed in the back of the net. At the end of the group with Poland, Peru and Cameroon, the entire press attacked the national team, Bearzot and, in particular, against Rossi, guilty of not doing his job, scoring. Belluini shades were used, according to the bad habit of exaggerating. Shouts are often forced to regret having screamed. So it was. While everyone was shelling their rosary and preparing the usual box of tomatoes to be taken out at the airport thinking about what awaited us in the rooms having in the group Argentina by Maradona and Brazil by Falcao and Zico, the players broke the boxes, also because they were attacked on a personal level, and started a press blackout.
Captain Zoff, the taciturn man imaginable, went to meet reporters every day. The national team was silent and was preparing for two field games. Bearzot transmitted confidence, especially to Paolo who was frustrated by the absence of the goal and the attacks suffered. Those two phenomena Tardelli and Cabrini took care of Argentina, while Gentile took advantage of Diego Maradona. Then came the decisive match with Brazil. Please mark this date. July 5, 1982, 5:15 p.m. at the Sarri stadium in Barcelona. And if you are going to look on You Tube for a beautiful report by Michele Plastino, shot from the stands, like any fan. Paolo headed in, from a perfect Cabrini cross, then stole a ball from the Brazilians and flew into the net, finally adding a leg to a Tardelli shot that scored the decisive goal. If you ask someone who was in the age of reason in 1982, describe those actions as if you saw them yesterday. Then the goals with Poland, in the semifinals. One of cunning, one of head, as if kneeling in prayer in the field. The screamers withdrew immediately and obviously became aedi, because in Italy it is always September 8.
The reprobate Rossi became the absolute hero, with the speed of lightning. The Italians went crazy for him and for the national team. And finally they returned to the streets, breaking the leadership in heaven and finding themselves embraced and united. Intoxicated with a childish joy, such as sports can give. Then came the final, the one in which Pertini stood up and said “They’re not taking us anymore.”. Once Paolo described those moments to me like this.
I asked him: “If you could relive one moment, just one, of that world championship, which one would you choose? “I have no doubt. The end of the final. As I talk to her, I see it again. We who go through the field, with the Cup in hand and a great confusion in the head. I shudder. I stop, I stop. I feel on the billboards. I slowly slow my head and see the crowd, people crying, tricolor flags waving, people hugging and my colleagues smiling. All at once. I understand what the word happiness really means. I wish I could stop this moment forever. Instead, I know it will happen, but now I don’t want to think about it. I know that happiness is also thanks to me. And as I look at those smiles and tears, sitting on those boards, my stickers come to mind, the first ball, the yellow and red jersey, the oratory, mine with Prinz traveling to Turin. And I understand that the joy of others is also due to my fatigue, my sacrifices and also the pain, a lot, suffered in a strange career. Here it is, the moment that I would like to relive ”.
We, who lived that moment, now only feel great pain and great gratitude for Paolo Rossi. For our Pablito.
December 10, 2020 (change December 10, 2020 | 09:50)
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