Foggia-Cerignola, playoffs: what makes football unique

The one between Foggia and Cerignola is one of those matches that could be taken as a testimonial of how unique, beautiful, for someone cruel but certainly incomparable this can be, which is not just a game. Many have already said it very well, starting with the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly or in a more pop key, Nick Hornby in “90 ° Fever” when, around the seesaw of emotions that follow one another around a rolling ball , formulated the iconic phrase “We will never get beyond this phase”. In all of this, needless to say, a great deal is given by the environment that the fans contribute to creating. Whatever their professional detractors say about them, who then in spite of coherence, use the images of the choreographies for their programs or to sell their products in general. But it has always been like this, as for a few days in Emilia Romagna where the ultras committed to helping out after the flood have become “angels of the mud” then they will instead be recipients of their mud machine at the first out-of-the-line initiative.

But let’s give some context: this return of the round of 16 of the Serie C playoffs started with all the premises of the impossible feat. In fact, at the “Monterisi” the freshman Cerignola had crushed the more famous Foggia with a heavy 4 to 1, complete with a dispute against the Rossoneri on their return to the city. Because away games were forbidden for the fans, exactly like for the Cerignolani in this second match. The usual slipping away from the management of public order by those who should guarantee it.

Perhaps the players believed in it little and probably not so much even the fans who, however, by attitude and act of faith, did not conceive a priori any other approach than to fight to the end, to come out with a sweaty shirt or with red uvulas for those in the stands, with the consequent awareness, therefore, of having given everything that could be given. Only this mitigates the disappointment and makes a defeat more honorable, only this makes it plausible perhaps even to hope for miracles.

And this is what happened at the “Zaccheria” where the match now seemed destined for the inevitable and Foggia’s 79th-minute goal had nothing but the semblance of meager consolation, just as the final forcing seemed like the routine of the usual bitter ending. Then the imponderable, the absurd, in terms of beauty or terror depending on the perspectives of the beholder: first in the 94th minute and then in the 97th minute, in fact, the Rossoneri scored two goals in rapid succession which meant qualification.

The sensations, the frenzied exultation with all the voice and the whole body, the joy and the rest that one can only try to imagine. Just as, whoever is responsible, should try to play an equal game of imagination and rethink everything without the liberating scream of the public, without the emotional involvement, without the osmosis between players on the field and in the curve. The same enterprise, the same joy of the players on the pitch shared with an empty stadium, with cold and aseptic concrete steps as happened, for example, in times of pandemic. What makes football unique are its fans. And even in moments of great celebration like these, the request to the political and football leaders is only one: enough with these bans. Like those who go on the field, like those who go into the curve: do yours to the end.

Photo by Pier Paolo Sacco