The sublime normality of Pablito

A year that starts, a year that arrives, and, at the moment of the revolving doors of the greetings, two football champions who take their leave for good: Diego Armando Maradona and Paolo Rossi.

The winning secret of Pablito, as Rossi was now called in Italy and in the world, is that we all identified with him, in a personal dimension, and in an epochal one.

In a personal way, because he had a trivial name for an average Italian, a pale complexion, a slender physique, yet he had become the myth of the Mundial of Spain 1982. The sublime normality of the boy next door, who amazes every time, realizing his, and our dreams. The memory of an irresistible smile remains, that is, an ability to look at life with simplicity, intelligence and joy. I am convinced that his strength was this, if not, he would not have been able to overcome authentic cyclones, such as the many injuries, and 2 seasons of inactivity due to disqualification.

In an epochal key, because, precisely as an emblem of that sporting triumph, but not only sporting one, he had helped to guide us out of a dark and terrible tunnel: the years of lead. The flight of a butterfly, like his run, towards a lightness finally freed from violence.

The Italians had no more modesty in celebrating, dusting off the tricolors, which the opposition between right and left had cataloged only in a reactionary sense.I remember some fras of him: «During the tour of the field, after the victory in the final against Germany, I stopped, I threw myself under an advertising billboard, and thanked God for what he was giving me. I belong to a generation in which Christian values ​​counted ... and truly counted ».

Now, of that squadron, the Bearzot, the Scirea, the Rossi begin to lack, but the emotions that always rise to us without age limits will never be lacking: the 3 goals that made Brazil cry, but with the difference that this time, we are the ones crying.

NP Gennaio 2021

Carlo Nesti