Too elegant, too distant, too talking. Gianni Rivera is a feeling, or you feel it or not. On the pitch it was the first real explication of football aesthetics – thanks to the TV – and then also of the emotional one: after the goal of four to three against Germany at the World Cup in Mexico in 1970.
He has won everything: from the Ballon d’Or (1969) to the Intercontinental Cup, passing through that of the Champions. Father twice, heretic, extremist, but DC MP. A continuous oxymoron. He preferred Bergman to Fellini, and Ferruccio Valcareggi preferred Sandro Mazzola to him. He was the incarnation of the Pallonaro miracle, without ever becoming populist, too aristocratic for a square: for Gianni Brera he was a social climber inclined to be a causidic, for Luciano Bianciardi a poet, for Diego Abatantuono a saint who works miracles, for Oreste del Buono the only Italian footballer outside the Machiavellian dynamics, for Gino Palumbo the greatest footballer from the post-war period to the seventies. Looking back at his plays today, it seems to read Alberto Arbasino: lightness, elegance and imagination in movement, with and without the ball. The boy Gianni Rivera turns eighty, speaking of the future, in a country that seems to have less and less, it will be that he is the son of the Boom.
Gigi Riva: «I refused a billion from Juve, but I no longer follow football. Women? They were crazy for me”
What has he been doing all these years?
«After I stopped playing, I became AC Milan’s vice president, then I entered Parliament for 22 years, and after a transition from the Municipality to Sport, I returned to football in the Federation: going from the youth sector to the Coverciano technical center for 5 years. I took the various licenses to become a professional coach, and also for the Italian national team. In short, I’m here. Even more so today that I have a professional licence. After Ventura, the president Tavecchio offered me this possibility which was opposed by all those connected to the coaches’ association: a pity that they applied this rule with some exceptions».
Can you tell me the exception?
«It is evident, Roberto Mancini in Serie A».
Would you pose naked again? Did he then learn English?
«This story of the nude was a pun from Oriana Fallaci, never thought of nor was it offered to me. I learned English in Parliament, they made us take a course».
Who was the Rivera of Italian politics: Moro, Berlinguer or Andreotti?
«Andreotti was constantly amazed, he also had self-irony, think of his jokes about power».
What was worse between the DC congresses and the locker rooms?
«Congresses are better, where I didn’t go. At the DC they had the intelligence to apply without a card, which they never asked me for. That was fine with him. I was more alone in parliament than on the pitch.”
But did Concetto Lo Bello ever meet him?
“On the pitch too often.”
Is he still pissed?
“If I think about it, yes. And then I tell myself that with the Var in my life there would be no Lo Bello ».
Was it worth worrying so much about footballers only to find out that Saudi, like globalization, would erase everything?
«Only the money wins and that almost says it all. We need people who have to think, whether they occupy a seat in Parliament or whether they are involved in football. I still have a lot to say about this. But I’m too uncomfortable. That’s the impression.”
Were Gianni Brera’s bites on her like Craxi’s jokes on Andreotti or more Di Pietro vs Fanfani?
«Nothing was like Brera. He was unique, and he used me. Everyone praised me and he went against it, it was a choice, deep down he liked me, maybe even more than the others”.
Nereo Rocco, Nils Liedholm and Bruno Tabacci are your godparents, how were they really with you?
«Rocco put you at ease, with jokes. A voucher. Liedholm was pure ice, with Swedish-style jokes that few understood. Harder than Rocco. Tabacci is smart».
For many you were the living room and Gigi Riva the savannah, have you ever thought of going to Africa?
«I went there, several times, for important tours, but with my family, nothing to do with Hemingway».
Between Bergman and Fellini, do you still prefer Swedish or has a new director arrived?
«I now prefer film music composers to directing, my son, who graduated from the Santa Cecilia conservatory in percussion, opened up a world to me».
Are you telling me that today Abbot Rivera would be a Barella?
“I’m telling you that I prefer film music composers. Is there a cinema in Barella?»
When did you last take the tram?
«In December 1978, with Beppe Viola, for that interview on “Domenica Sportiva” which became a television cult».
Was Father Eligio supposed to become pope or have a series on Netflix like Muccioli?
«Father Eligio has done a lot for many boys and that’s okay, I would say that he has done enough for the good of the youth».
If she was already big at twenty what is it now?
“I’m small again to start over! I regret not having trained before, I have never taken advantage of anything. I felt like a manager.”
Didn’t he feel too smart?
“It never is.”
Mick Jagger turns 80 too, who ran more between you two?
“On the field you run more and more.”
For Luciano Bianciardi you were a poet, can you tell me your favorite poem?
«“If” by Kipling, se as an adverb, non se reflexive pronoun».
You were born in Alessandria as Eco, between writing “The name of the rose” and coaching the national team, which would you choose?
«Coaching the national team is easier and it would take less time».
Have you ever felt like an alien?
“Sometimes in the field it seemed to me to be, but I was wrong, the aliens have another culture.”
Can you tell me the first three things that can be done in six minutes in Valcargia?
«In little football, you have to be lucky. Outside of football many things. Just don’t choose to jump out a window. But knowing how to wait for the next six minutes to do better».
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1970-01-01 00:00:00
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