Marotta first. In recent days the rumors have multiplied and when the rumors multiply there are those who legitimately panic: “Marotta returns to Juve!”, “Many have written it!”, “Elkann calls, Beppe answers!”, “Poor Inter” and so on.
In these cases, those who do my job can only do one thing: check as best they can. Here, with respect to these rumors and to the precise question “will you return to Juve” the person concerned replied “absolutely not”. I owed you so much.
And now Brozovic.
When Marcelo Brozovic – the Croatian midfielder – kicked a crucial ball into Saudi Arabia a few minutes from the end of the Croatia-Brazil quarter-final, his fans fell into a syncopation: “Holy shit, this shot came out really bad, now they will blame you for actually being gigantic.” Then it went as it did and, therefore, we can peacefully ignore the detractors and say what we think (and we would have thought even in case of defeat and relative elimination).
Marcelo Brozovic is a unique footballer. Mind you, we didn’t say “the strongest”, we said “unique”, in the sense that there are none like him. And it’s a question of total and manifest serenity (give him the ball on the edge of his area with five opponents against him and rest assured he won’t get anxious), it’s a question of resistance (he’s clearly the player who has run the most at the World Cup; with over 16 km minced in the eighth final against Japan, he broke the World Cup record), it’s a matter of eccentricity (the bomb tattooed on his neck, the red underpants, the crocodile, the combined beer + cigarette , the apparent detachment from reality), it’s a question of thought (he always knows where and who to give the ball to), it’s a question of choices (he preferred to renew his contract with Inter despite numerous courtships, because he knows that he will good in one place counts more than increasing the salary elsewhere) and, yes, it is also a question of “who are you next to”. In Inter the cronies are called Calhanoglu and Barella, not two idiots, in the national team they have the faces of Kovacic and the Ballon d’Or Modric, a real luxury.
Here, Barilla. In a nice interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, the Nerazzurri said this about his teammate: “In front of the defence, Brozo is the best in the world. Casemiro would also be there, but he interprets it differently. Nobody is like Marcelo”. You won’t believe it, but the rest of us totally agree with him.
PS. And then there’s Lautaro, fresh from matches that you define as “complicated” as a compliment. For now it’s not his World Cup, but that penalty there, kicked last, heavy as a ton of cast iron, is worth a lot, a lot. Long live the Bull.
