Ciao Paolo
10 Days ago we were here crying the greatest footballer of all time: Diego Armando Maradona.
Today we are here to mourn again a God of the ball, a more normal God, less talented, less portentous in his gestures and actions but in his unforgettable little one, especially for us Italians.
It was 1982 and Enzo Bearzot's Italian national team amazed the world by beating one after the other the strongest national teams on the planet.
Also Maradona tasted a pinch of the tenacity of that team, when in that same World Cup the marking of Gentile left on his jersey the signs of a physical battle without discounts.
As "el diez" would have done 4 years later, that Italy won, convinced, deserved and deserved beyond any reasonable doubt, limiting Argentina, beating Brazil, getting rid of Poland and outclassing Germany in the final.
In the minds and eyes of all of us, even those who, like me, in 1982 were far from being born yet, that image of President Sandro Pertini in Madrid, smiling and triumphant, symbol of a united Italy truly under the blue hues of the national team.
But if this is the story in synthesis of that triumph, the symbol, the face, the brother that all of us represented and that none of us will remember is another, and it is precisely he who left us this night at 64 years old, still a little more alone than we were.
Paolo Rossi, for all Pablito, was the hero of that triumphal march.
You think that on that plane to Spain he would not even have had to get on.
In his place there should have been Roberto Pruzzo, an Abruzzese attacker of Roma, much more quoted and in good shape.
Bearzot chose this little boy to whom you would not have given 2 lire.
3 goals against Zico's infamous Brazil.
2 goals in the semifinals against Zibì Boniek's Poland.
One goal in the final to seal that ride.
Paolo Rossi landed in Spain as semi-unknown, he became a legend.
A golden ball followed, the second Italian ever after Gianni Rivera to win him, and a career on and off the field that was a continuous red carpet.
For us Italians Paolo Rossi has always been Paolo Rossi, the simple boy, next door, smiling and at home, a familiar face, friend, common name, the average man capable of extraordinary things.
With him we dreamed, with him we loved the national team and why not, even a little more our belpaese.
Paolo Rossi was the symbol of a unified Italy under the colors of blue of the national team.
Paolo Rossi was the emblem of the last Italy truly loving his children, truly protagonist in all fields, truly proud of its past, its present and its future.
With him today dies something that we had already forgotten long ago but that every time he came back to visit us through his goals in those sunny and glorious days of the summer of 1982.
Forever ours, thanks to Pablito.
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