5.28 pm. When from Siberian South Curve you can glimpse the Tiffany green shirts of the referee and his assistants, the first to come out of the tunnel to the changing rooms and step onto the grass of theArechidazed by the long wait, we are almost caught off guard. It is that, between the endless queue at the turnstiles and the infinite wait for Godotwe had come to believe that we had come to the wrong address. We were already imagining the right title for an epic storytelling: “The odyssey of those fans who left their homes to go and see Salernitana-Pisa and mysteriously found themselves at the concert of Taylor Swift”.
On the other hand, reaching a stadium three hours early, perhaps with the intention of grabbing the best seats, is a habit for the unbridled fans of artists of the caliber of the current queen of pop: if I had known before, I would have brought the girl. Instead, at my side there were “the usual ones”. They are my father, who together with the cellular genetic material transmitted to me the disease for this damned garnet shirt, and my brother, who has also inherited this inexplicable pathology capable of manifesting itself in a sort of masochistic love: “When you win you belong to everyone, when you lose you belong to me alone”.
As per decades-long habit, 40 minutes before we are in Allende StreetWe take the liberty of teasing Dad, who wears his jacket tied around his waist in the blazing sun: «The jacket? In this heat?». He doesn’t answer, but revenge is a dish best enjoyed cold. Or fresh, like the one that starts to make itself felt immediately after the penalty converted into a goal by Bonfanti. My brother and I are with our arms crossed: «Did you see that I did well?», sneers Dad, who is now wearing the jacket. Wisdom from times gone by. Those in which there were no monitors on the sidelines. Those of spontaneous joy, when it was enough just to stare at the assistant referee’s flag to scream in excitement with the joy of a goal.
At 3pm the Was there is not. From Lissone no signal is coming. «Let’s play without… “, is the natural deduction of the fans crowded into the Siberiano wall, but from the locker rooms they are not there: they say it can’t be done. A bit like when the cleats disappear from the displays of the futuristic smartphones that we carry in our pockets: stupefied by technology at all costs, we ask ourselves how we will survive without a network. Then there is the sensible one of the group who provocatively asks us: “But how did you do it as a kid?».
«Eternal hatred for modern football», they shout from Siberiano. In Lissone, no one listens. There is no signal. Not even in the locker rooms: VAR or death. And so, while I am in line for the smelly stairs (the postponement of the match has allowed some fans to mature the digestion times of Sunday lunch) that lead to the sparse bathrooms of Siberiano, I fantasize about the “varisti” (I discover that’s what they call them) that the League tried to drag off the sofa. I imagine the one in slippers who declines the invitation and the one at the mall with his wife, who rushes to show her availability. Someone jokes about it: they assume that he cut the cables Simidisappointed by his exclusion from the starting eleven.
When the long-awaited match begins, I count at least ten fluorescent jerseys on the pitch: «Are they referees or too many variists who came?“, we ask ourselves, before recognizing the outfield players of the Pisa. Many of their fans leave: protest against modern football that respects (rightly) presidents and investments but then forgets the people. We remain stoically on the terraces, Sunday is over. It ended badly, but we are used to that. Taylor Swift does not dance, our defense does. At 8 pm we go home. I think of my brother who organizes his daughters’ birthday parties: he always has a plan B for rain or other setbacks. I almost want to propose it to the League that only bears the name of B, not the plans. Then I convince myself that in the end it would be enough to just take a step back: it was better before. Without a monitor, yes, but with a jacket on his belt.
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– 2024-09-17 20:34:03
