“Juventus: From Triumph to Defeat and the Road to Rebuilding”

Finally Juve! It was the Title from the Gazzetta dello Sport du 19 May 1977after blacks and whites weathered a stormy sea the night before with helmets and a waved banner on the glory mast, dressed in blue tunics, against Athletico Bilbao in the last game of San Mamés, to the Basque headquarters of the fortress, built by Captain Furino with the help of his brave companions. The first international trophy in the history of Madama has been won. To paraphrase the title of an Elio Petri film, starring all-Italian Juventus – Zoff, Cuccureddu, Gentile, Furino, Morini, Scirea, Causio, Tardelli, Boninsegna, Benetti, Bettega – The working class had gone to heaven. There, in the birthplace of Miguel de Unamuno, the out-of-the-world singer, Juventus celebrated their chivalrous and triumphant entry into the world of European football and became the first team in the world to win every international trophy.

46 years later, in Andalusia, in SevilleCradle of the exploits of Figaro, de facto barber of Beaumarchais, Juventus could start again From that happy old UEFA Cup (today the Europa League… now everything is made for a league, easy or super, whatever you want…!) instead the dream is gone, gone forever, dead suddenly, under the blows of the razor and scissors by two Figari dismissed from the Italian championship. Things you wouldn’t believe, and yet that’s the way it is. You know, when one of our dreams dies, a part of us dies, and unfortunately a lot of black and white dreams lately turn into dark nightmares, taking with them the beating of our hearts.

Juventus against Sevilla, unlike the ill-fated Italian Cup semi-final against Inter, at least used the pitch to play and had the goddess on their side in certain circumstances. Of course, he could and should have done much more: Avoid the gross and unforgivable mistakes of talented world champions like Di Maria (unobservable) and Europa like Chiesa (pathetic); Don’t get crushed in the trenches after Vlahovic’s deserved advantage. Faced with personality (big and invisible big word) a meeting which at this point could sanction the complete failure of a season, in the carnivalesque expectation of yet another change in rankings, yet paradoxically virtual access and/or veto. could stay area UEFIn. Total defeat on all fronts ” Finally “Restart.

Unlike the victorious 1977, there was no Thursday night Claw Plow, this mixture of tenacity and courage, courage and fighting spirit, coupled with a passionate desire to respond to adversity. Watching the legendary 1982 World Cup semi-final between West Germany and France at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium was a great opportunity, setting the stage for the explosive mix and turning a season’s disappointment into fuel, competitive frenzy and future glory. The Andalusian final was the rotten icing on a spoiled seasonal cake Right from the start (see Pogba’s knee and subsequent problems of all kinds) and overcome by two very powerful poisons: a worrying expectation and the absolute absence of certainty, both on and off the pitch.

The bitter and desperate cup night, filled with game action that never gave serenity and the certainty of dominating the pitch only gave the Juventus fan patient. A Latin word, a feeling, with a double meaning: “endurance, patience” and “suffering, passion”.

We will have to work hard: rulers, vassals, valvassori and valvassini or president of today or tomorrow, leaders of today or tomorrow, senators (those few shavings that remain). Everyone, from the top of the edifice to the circle in the middle, must rebuild a broken soul, cherishing the words of Bertrand Russell, who wrote that now only on the solid foundations of unyielding despair can the edifice of the soul be built .

I would like to at least hope that this wondrous adverb of auspiciousness, which rosea used provocatively by me nearly half a century ago, and used provocatively today, will be soon (starting tomorrow! ) re-read in the newspapers by the black and white world. This time he is referring to something to start from scratch, something that has escaped the notice of many lately, never Manzoni, who made Renzo exclaim with a pinch of inevitable bitter irony: ” There is finally justice in this world!”