Vincenzo Grifo has told the stories a few times: how he, the little boy from Pforzheim, spent summer vacation after summer vacation with his grandmother in Italy. More than twenty hours in the car to Sicily, Grifo and his two brothers in the back seat, his mother in the passenger seat, making bologna rolls – and then the holiday in Italy. Early in the morning at the sea, at noon cannelloni on a large table at Grandma’s, then back to the beach, in the evening a barbecue and then a walk across the piazza.
These are childhood memories of a man who will return to Italy this week. This time, however, not in the south, in Naro or in Lecce, where his parents come from, but in the industrial city of Turin. Where the big and proud club Juventus is at home, Freiburg’s opponents in the round of 16 of the Europa League.
Juventus vs. SC Freiburg, doesn’t that sound a bit surreal? It’s two worlds coming together. The big touches the small. Here Juve, the world club, 36-time Italian champions, Champions League winners, World Cup winners – and there the sports club, which dinged by bus to Sandhausen at the beginning of February for a DFB Cup game and is now flying to Turin for a European Cup night.
Since the draw, the Freiburg press office has received more than two dozen interview requests for Grifo alone. A number that also has something to do with the fact that it is the normal that makes Grifo’s story so special.
Vincenzo Grifo, 29, son of Italian immigrants, grew up in north-west Baden-Württemberg and was socialized in an Italian family home. Serie A on TV, Inter Milan at heart, Italian at the kitchen table. On the soccer field, Grifo emulated Andrea Pirlo and practiced free-kicks until the sun disappeared behind the roofs of the houses – on vacation he ran through the market squares of Sicily in fake jerseys with Pirlo’s lettering on the back.
Grifo’s story is relatable precisely because it is so ordinary. He was the boy across the street, incredibly talented and almost eaten up by ambition, but someone in whom you can see yourself again when you think back to your own childhood. Or who, who has been seized by football, didn’t want to circle the ball at least once on goal like Pirlo? Caress him like Zinedine Zidane, who also played for Juve? Or, that would be the least on the soccer field, hitting the iced tea bottles that served as goalposts at the other end of the field?
Andrea Pirlo (here against then-Lazio striker Miroslav Klose in 2013) is a Juventus icon – Vincenzo Grifo emulated him.
(Photo: Di Marco/dpa)
Grifo will not be as big as Pirlo was; the way from Grifo to Pirlo is simply too far, but the Freiburg native now plays for the Italian national team himself. The boy, who used to eat grandma’s cannelloni, has grown up – but he has retained what made the football field child from Pforzheim what it was, this free-spirited, this informal. You notice that every now and then when you talk to Grifo after games. Sandhausen, a cold Tuesday evening, the round of 16 in the DFB Cup, a little over four weeks ago.
Freiburg is struggling, but in the end it is again a corner from Grifo that brings the sports club 1-0 shortly before the end. After the game, he stands on the cobblestones in the interview zone in a thick winter jacket and is asked about Noah Atubolu, who was in charge of the Freiburg goal instead of Mark Flekken. Atubolu did well, so is there any difference to Flekken at all? Grifo would now only have to reach into the box with the building blocks that footballers often reach into. He could praise Atubolu with the usual phrases or point out Flekken’s fundamental importance, but Grifo doesn’t think twice and when asked about the difference, says: “Maybe the age.”
Grifo is surrounded by something shapeless, anarchic – that helps SC Freiburg
The fact that Grifo not only follows the usual patterns is also evident on the pitch. This anarchy, this formlessness is still there, detached from everything that is now in the foreground in the youth: that the players are defined as cogs in a running system.
Freiburg also plays orderly football, which is based on tactical discipline and can only be successful if everyone does their job. Grifo also has to submit, but he is, and that’s how he stands out, a man for the special moments in the Freiburg game. And of course for set pieces – he has already scored 12 goals this season, six of them from penalties.
Grifo will also be important in Turin. For Freiburg, the game is both an honor and an incentive. In Breisgau, they see the fact that they are dealing with Juve primarily as a reward for the work of the past few years. However, and this should not be neglected, they will not just hand over the club pennant when choosing a seat and then simply hope to get away with it as accident-free as possible.
Juve must win, Freiburg can win. Maybe that’s where the opportunity for the sports club lies. Where it lies with certainty are the corners and free kicks of the man who used to want to be like Andrea Pirlo in Pforzheim.
