Have a beautiful good morning! Recently, in my obituary for the ball kicker Gianluca Vialli in this newspaper, I mentioned his friendship with Roberto Mancini. The two Wembley heroes were not only kindred spirits (celebration beasts), they also formed a tandem on the pitch that is unforgettable, at least in Italy, and were therefore also called the “goal twins” by the Tifosi. There were a lot of notorious tandems like this one. Rüdiger Abramczyk and Klaus Fischer were one thing, Manni Kaltz and Horst Hrubesch another. Lionel Messi’s World Cup win and performance would have been unthinkable in Qatar without the self-sacrificing dedication of his water carrier Rodrigo De Paul. He almost didn’t go to the World Cup because his wife at the time had demanded crazy amounts of money in the divorce process. Without an agreement, De Paul would not have been able to take part in the World Cup because being a kicker with ongoing legal proceedings from the carnival club Fifa…
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