Sergio Parisse, the captain of Toulon and 92 times of Italy in rugby, had already cried in front of the cameras, but this time the giant was tackled by emotion not only linked to oval issues. This time his tears on live TV really moved all of France, which dotes on the Italian.
Saturday evening the strongest player in the history of Italian rugby (142 appearances, a record) was on the pitch at the Velodrome in Marseille to lead Toulon against Toulouse, the key match of the Top14, the very tough French championship in which the 39-year-old blue has been the absolute protagonist for 18 seasons. Twenty-four hours earlier, however, Sergio was in the church of San Francesco all’Aquila to hold the hands of his mother Carmela, to embrace his sister Manuela and brother Gianluca. In front of them the coffin of their father Sergio, who died at the age of 77: the coffin was wrapped in a black-and-green flag, the colors of Aquila Rugby with which the winger had won the Scudetto in 1967. It was he who passed it on to his unborn son just the name, but also the passion and talent for tries and tackles.
Terrible this image of Parisse, especially when you know the context for him. pic.twitter.com/l6K7ilSmW0
— Aurélien Maestracci (@aurelien_) February 18, 2023
In the 33rd minute of the match in Marseille, in front of 45,000 faithful, Parisse tackled his opponent Pierre-Lous Barassi “to overturn” and was logically expelled by the referee Nuchy with whom the Italian shook hands before leaving the field . It was a decisive match for Toulon who at that moment were winning 10-3: a victory would have put them back in the running for Brennus’ Scudetto, the French Scudetto and Sergio, who won two of those Scudi with the Stade Francais and who announced two weeks ago that he will retire at the end of the season, thus leaving the team outnumbered for much of the game. The captain went down to the dressing room and burst into tears live in front of the Canal Plus cameras while the assistant coaches and his team-mates tried to console him.
Everyone knew, including the commentators, what was happening in the captain’s heart. Then the Toulon coach, at the end of the very tight match won 17-6, expressed all his admiration for the captain: “It wasn’t a week like any other for Sergio: he left for L’Aquila for his father’s funeral , a rugby player like him, who had been scheduled for the eve of the match. Then the captain returned a few hours before the match and asked to play, as did Cheslin Kolbe (South African international world champion, ed.) albeit starting from another type of emotion: always on the eve he had witnessed the birth of his son.Of these players (with experiences already full of glory, ed.) one cannot help but admire their desire to be on the pitch to support the team in an important day”.
Even in 2019, after Italy-France in the Six Nations at the Olimpico, which finished 14-25 despite the captain having fought like a lion as always, so much so that he was named best player of the match, a few tears had lined Sergio Parisse’s face in front of the cameras. The defeat, yet another, against France, of course, and then the terrible injury to his friend Leo Ghiraldini that risked ending his career that day.
