Africa leads Serie A
With Victor Osimhen’s umpteenth feat in my eyes, I reflected on how Serie A and Africa finally managed to complete their merger In the Dragon Ball. The best players on the continent are either with us or were there not long ago. In addition to the Napoli Bomber, we have Lookman, Nzola, Bennacer, Anguissa, Onana, Barrow, Kouame, Dia and if I forgot anyone, I apologize. Among those who have recently left, it is enough to remember Salah, Hakimi and Kessié. Take away Mané and the regretted Ounahi – who moved to Marseille for a plate of broad beans, but is very close to Napoli – there’s almost everything good.
There Top Scorer Ranking seems to benefit particularly from this grace and alongside the nineteen of the current top scorer, the twelve centers of the Anglo-Atalantine winger of Nigerian nationality, the ten of the Angolan forward from Spezia – before the injury on the podium – and the eight of the Senegalese from Salerno stand out .
To be clear, many of them were educated in France or England, grew up in Spain, went to school in Germany, but that common thread is always Africa, a country that Italy too often looks at with lazy eyes, if not suspicious. The first African to set foot in Serie A was from Ivory Coast and he hadn’t even had time to put on that foot they had already invented like Abebe Bikila who showed up barefoot at his first training session. laughs His name was Zahoui, but they had immediately renamed him Zigulì, like the liquorice candies, which in addition to being amazing were black, like his skin. Laughter and more laughter, like in this first play of the eighties from kindergarten to pensioners’ club, which imitated the foreign sound of the so-called “vucumprà” that began to fill the streets and beaches of Italy to drink.
It had taken twelve years to see another African in Serie A and it was Pescara who picked him up – pardon the involuntary pun. 1992, after some good seasons in France at Monaco, tal Roger Mendy he had come at the age of thirty-two just to score the continent’s first goal in what was then the finest championship in the world and was relegated to Serie B as a result. But he liked Italy because he settled there afterwards. It was a first conversation, it seemed like a tentative change of perspective.
But it’s good to remember that all that glitters is not gold.
In youth football, Ghanaians were depopulated and so in 1994 Torino were persuaded to take Marseille the champion of all but lost three-time African Ballon d’Or Abedì Pelè due to illegal actions. As if today with a little snobbery they brought home the aforementioned Mané. It could have been the revolution, but it wasn’t the best Ghanaian player of all time who began to undermine historic Italian distrust of the ‘dark continent’, to quote Edoardo Vianello and his watussi.
George Weah came the following year, certainly not a diamond in the rough caught by observant scouts, but a golden ball from France Football in pectore. Seeing him again, enjoying some of his moves, the sublime intelligence of his moves, it seems like all the innovations of modern football are already written in his DNA. Technique, arrogance and service to the team mixed. After him the flood. Understood as a flurry of players arriving more or less, some well and some not, thanks to rules for non-EU players with slightly wider meshes and the easy issuance of EU passports left and right.
The ball kept spinning despite everything and so the late South African came to stay in the bomber field masingathe Cameroonian Mboma and the unfortunate Nigerian canoewho joined Inter to work with Ronie after leading Ajax to the Champions League and his national side to the Olympics had discovered a mad heart that not even Little Tony had.
Then there had been Kallon and Oba Oba Martinsalways at Inter.
We continued to do that in Italy monkey noises in stadiums, but when Zoro stopped play in a match between Messina and Inter to take the ball away and get away from those who wanted to humiliate him but immortalized him, everyone was amazed at the over-the-top gesture. But Africa was stronger than racismthe strong Africans now too many to be ignored by listening to the ‘buuuu’ from the stands and therefore the strongest African after Weah and before – but only in order of appearance – was also Osimhen, the ex-Barcelonist and new Nerazzurri player, he arrived, Samuel Eto’o.
From the Treble hero to today – or the day before yesterday – let’s jump to Salah and Hakimi down to the spate of recent goals, a sign that things might be changing for the better. Although an Italian like Paola Egonu says that black life is bad in Italy, many African players seem to be feeling more and more comfortable, at least when we see them entering the green rectangle. Is it the right time for a profound change? Meanwhile, we enjoy their goals, which like heroes are all beautiful (and often young).
