Paolo Rossi was here

A.C. MILAN OFFICIAL

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00:00 I have a great memory of Paolo Rossi.

00:03 He was not only a great teammate, but he was also a great friend of mine off the pitch.

00:09 I had several opportunities to understand how much he was loved by the people.

00:15 This convinced me that as a sportsman he managed to unite the people of a nation.

00:21 He was really a great person, a great character and a great friend.

00:29 The voice that Paolo Rossi speaks of does not come from the Spanish World Cup.

00:33 It does not come from the fasts of Pablito del Sarrià, Camp Nou or Bernabeu.

00:38 But, although it is not iridious, it is not a banal voice.

00:43 It is that of one of the two halves of the M2,

00:47 the twins of the youth sector of the 80s, Roberto Mancini and Marco Maccina.

00:53 Marco, the San Marinese talent, the golden boy of Monte Titano,

00:59 would become Paolo Rossi's teammate a few years later, in Milanello, Milan.

01:05 The two sides of Maccina's life, from the very young Mancio to the world veteran,

01:11 introduced in Rosso Nero, Paolo Rossi pronounced as a single word,

01:15 without the necessary subdivision between name and surname.

01:20 It is in the Rosso Nero sports centre that one could write a movie sentence.

01:24 Paolo Rossi was here.

01:26 He was a fan of goals against Brazil, Poland and Germany.

01:29 He was several times a Juventus player.

01:32 He was highly appreciated as a television commentator,

01:34 but not always remembered as Rosso Nero.

01:37 If not, for the two goals in the derby of December 1,

01:40 the only ones scored in the Rosso Nero jersey,

01:42 against Walter Zenga in a San Siro derby, in the Terminan, 2-2.

01:46 Yet, in a key season, in a historical year,

01:50 the one of the transition from the Farina presidency to the Berlusconi era,

01:54 Paolo Rossi was a Milanese.

01:57 Even if he was in a very different way from how he was lived and perceived in the football universe.

02:03 For everyone, he has always been and always will be a myth.

02:07 For his teammates in the formation trained by Nils Nidholm, he was a boy.

02:12 That's how he defines, exactly in these terms,

02:16 a product of the Milanese youth sector of those years, Roberto "Lupo" Lorenzini.

02:20 For us Italians, he was the symbol of 1982,

02:24 a magical moment in Italy.

02:27 He was a magical person, he was the star of that team.

02:33 I can remember that he had a smile on his lips,

02:39 a smile in his eyes and a smile in his heart.

02:43 I've never seen a person who conveyed this,

02:48 I don't say happiness, but this way of accompanying life.

02:53 Without any kind of comparison between men and players, completely different from each other,

02:59 Paolo Rossi, in 1985-86,

03:03 was exactly what Leonardo Bonucci would have been in 2017-18.

03:10 A midsummer dream for the Red-Black fans.

03:13 A walk around Valzer with dreams, too short to be remembered,

03:18 a dream confined to the short turn of a football season,

03:23 destined to be the fleeting face of a passing presidency.

03:29 Viro-HA. This was the acronym Virdis Rossi Hetley,

03:34 the name formed with the initials of several words and surnames.

03:38 When in December 2018 Virdis and Hetley celebrated together at the Arena Civica di Milano

03:43 the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Curva Sud,

03:47 only he was missing, Pablito.

03:49 Two years before his disappearance,

03:51 which would have moved the entire football community,

03:54 not only in Italy, but all over the world, as well-known and well-remembered, Filippo Galli.

03:59 I met Paolo Rossi for the first time in 1982,

04:02 the year of the World Cup, when he became Pablito for all Italians.

04:07 I met him when I played in Pescara, in a Coppa Italia match, played in Turin.

04:12 It was never easy to mark him,

04:14 neither on that occasion nor in subsequent occasions,

04:17 when I met him wearing the Milan shirt.

04:20 I was lucky to be with him in 1985-1986,

04:24 when he arrived in Milan.

04:26 He was no longer the Paolo Rossi everyone knew,

04:32 because he had a lot of physical problems,

04:35 but what I can say is that he has always been an extraordinary person,

04:39 a genuine, humble person,

04:41 who never made what he had won and what he had been,

04:45 and so I am really proud to have shared the dressing room with him

04:51 and many beautiful emotions.

04:53 Ciao Paolo, a hug wherever you are.

04:55 The chronicles tell that during the first phase of the 1985 Coppa Italia,

05:01 Paolo Rossi suffered the first injury,

05:04 but Nils Lidholm waited for him patiently

05:07 and that the first and only Sunday worthy of the Spanish meals,

05:10 Pablito would have lived it in the derby of the first leg.

05:14 It was the first December 1985,

05:18 the first derby ever played by Paolo Maldini.

05:21 A challenge of continuous emotions.

05:24 After Rossi's initial lead,

05:26 Spillo, Altobelli and Brady on the line,

05:29 overturned the result in favor of the Nerazzurri,

05:32 but to regain the draw,

05:34 the second guizzo of the number 10 Rossonero, Paolo Rossi,

05:38 was needed, the author of a network of opportunism and rapacity.

05:43 One of those paths on which he knew how to make a hole,

05:47 he and only he, Paolo Rossi.

05:49 Control, turn and left-footed shot, in advance on Beppe Baresi.

05:54 A goal very similar to the third net scored by Pablito

05:57 against Brazil in the now epic match of July 5, 1982.

06:03 A Sunday of grace, that Inter-Minnan 2-2.

06:07 Rossi also touched the treble,

06:09 the news stories tell.

06:11 Already the news stories.

06:13 They talk about results, goals,

06:16 but who was at the Minnan with him still talks about people,

06:20 indeed, of the person.

06:22 Modest and nice, as it was and as he knew how to behave, Paolo Rossi,

06:26 who did not establish relations and contacts only with the greats like him,

06:30 for example Franco Baresi, his fellow from Spain,

06:33 but also with the young people in the first team,

06:35 with the guys of the Primavera at the debut in the first team,

06:38 like Valentino Spelta.

06:40 A memory for me indelible,

06:42 it was a day, I got on the bus, it was spring,

06:46 to go home,

06:48 I did not come back with the Primavera,

06:52 because then it was added to the first team in some training,

06:56 and then I took some companions.

06:58 And once I got on the car of Paolo Rossi,

07:03 it was one of the trips that I will always remember with pleasure,

07:08 because he was really a splendid person,

07:11 modest, nice, humble,

07:14 despite the champion he was,

07:18 and that we all miss,

07:20 because he was really a beautiful person,

07:22 in addition to being a great footballer.

07:25 It is often said, we have done it here too,

07:27 that the only goals of the Pablito Rosso Nero

07:29 were only those of the derby against Zenga.

07:32 True, indeed, partially true.

07:35 The only ones in the league.

07:37 Because then, the 6,600 spectators present in an almost completely empty San Siro,

07:43 in a very cold evening of February 1986,

07:48 saw him score also in a rather anonymous Milan-Empoli.

07:53 Paolo Rossi's goal and a draw for Della Monica.

07:56 Final 1-1.

07:58 Rosso Neri eliminated from the Coppa Italia.

08:01 What a shame.

08:02 But Paolo Rossi's Milan doesn't start and doesn't end on the pitch.

08:06 His example was on the podium,

08:08 but also and above all off the pitch.

08:10 It was him, it was Paolo Rossi.

08:12 Without the need to go through the Coppa Italia,

08:15 the example told by Marco Macina is eloquent,

08:18 sparkling, strong and clear.

08:21 I remember a particular episode that happened to me

08:26 one evening in Milan,

08:28 when we went to dinner together.

08:30 We had two different cars

08:33 and when we left the restaurant,

08:36 my car was stolen.

08:39 So I asked him to accompany me to make the report.

08:44 And when I got to the barracks, I rang the bell

08:49 and they told me to come back tomorrow.

08:52 Then I said that I was a player of Milan

08:54 and that Paolo Rossi was in the car with me.

08:58 And then they left the barracks.

09:02 The day was lit up.

09:04 There was something incredible,

09:09 the joy and the pleasure of having a great champion

09:16 who signed autographs.

09:20 I remember it was a special evening.

09:25 The last time the World Cup was played in Rossonero

09:28 was at home in San Siro against Atalanta di Sonetti.

09:31 A glorious season for Milan,

09:34 away from Europe.

09:36 In two occasions, the goalkeeper Atalantino

09:38 and ex-Milanista Ottorino Piotti

09:40 scored a goal for Rossi at the Radoppio.

09:42 It was him, it was the singing of the swan

09:44 in a red and black shirt of Pablito.

09:46 It was April 27, 1986.

09:49 But these are the chronicles.

09:51 There are the men who played for Milan,

09:56 the men happy to shake his hand and to know him.

09:59 Among them, Andrea Icardi.

10:01 A few months before the double against Zenga by Paolo Rossi,

10:05 it was him, Andrea Icardi, who decided the Coppa Italia derby.

10:10 Icardi's goal, Milan in the Coppa Italia final.

10:13 A net that turned the confirmation in Rossonero for Andrea

10:17 that a few months after that decisive goal in June 1985,

10:22 he would have felt the pleasure, the honor of playing with Pablito.

10:26 Andrea Icardi's story is all human.

10:29 The skill and quality of the player were so clear, so evident.

10:34 They could even wait.

10:35 It is clear that Paolo Rossi was for me a person, a player,

10:41 that I never thought I would know,

10:43 because when I was 18 I was a result like a madman

10:49 to the victory of the great Italy of 1982.

10:57 With him I lived moments of great joy.

11:02 We went to see the games on the Longomare where there is the television.

11:09 We were on vacation, clearly in July,

11:13 and what Paolo Rossi did for Italy at that time,

11:19 in my youth, in my childhood, is clearly something special.

11:24 So I was always very impressed by his person,

11:29 within his weaknesses, his strengths.

11:34 I was able to understand how important Italy was for him

11:39 and how important it was for him to play football.

11:42 And what he was able to give to all of us,

11:46 both the players and the fans,

11:49 I think it is something impossible to have again.

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