Super Santos, Super Santos, the ball of the Italians

We were happy and didn’t know it. It was 1962, Marilyn Monroe died and the movie was released overtakethe peninsula is intoxicated with well-being, the miracle will continue for a few more years, and indeed Fins, harpoon and goggles A totem of the Italian summer is to be added. As Amarildo, Zito and Vavà keep the Seleçao on the roof of the world, Stefano Seno – a worker at Mondo SpA – has a revelation: under every bell tower, on every beach, in every garden A child must be able to kick a ball. That’s how it was born Great Santosand we will always be grateful to Mr. Stefano.

Newsagents, tobacconists, street vendors: with a few lire you could get this orange PVC ball, full of black stripes in bas-relief, reminiscent of a soccer ball that we have never seen before. The ball for children, Cittini, Putei, Pischelli or Piccirilli, from Upper to Lower Italy, everywhere Masses of young men collected donations to buy the sacred sphere and baste German or games that lasted from noon to sunset.

The ball with the notorious aerodynamics, better thrown from the tip because you couldn’t control the trajectory from the neck, and they were immediately greeted with screeches and angry yells from the old ladies nearby. Or in schoolyards, where Two backpacks are one door, and the nuns wait hopefully to ward off the ball of sin. When it landed in the neighbor’s garden or on the accountant’s patio, it was an instant “Mistereeee, pallaaaa‘ to get her back.

The balloon that shattered glass and vases bang against a wall At the end of the day, the cicadas were chirping.

When he disturbed sleep after Sunday lunch or got stuck in the unreachable branches of a pine tree. The ball if he had a flat tire It was tears of pain and a quick raising of capital to buy new ones. London smoke often came out from under the silencers to trap it. The scraped kneesand beyond what mama promised you.

‘And now I’m a hole in this ball‘ and they never hit it. The ball from when we were all friends and went to the beach together. searing you always find it in the bottom of a chest, as we call the luggage rack in the South, and is instantly world famous. When wet, it is breaded with sand, orange sun against the deep blue backdrop of our sea.

The ball that you, if the current had carried it away, would have tempted fate to recover, that bursts into a village square in summer when the ladies put on a scarf and eat strawberries and cream. Ballon dropping his ice cream while she laughs in amusement. The ball that beats the rhythm of an open-air cinema and accompanies the music of a small band by the sea. Two drops amidst the stench of naphtha while waiting for the ferries to take us to the islands.

The ‘it never falls‘, the ball of Crush seven halfway near the shore.

The ball lying in the green grass while doing your summer homework, the grandmother dragging the sole with a spoon in her hand because it’s done. The balloon that united us, that took away the embarrassment of talking to him the girls who could have stayed somewhere else but sat there on the benches while the battle for the German’s victory raged on. A broken mirror of a wasp and the owner who does not take it.

The balloon on the shore with the gentle waves of late August, the balloon the Days that go by sluggishly, leaving a salty taste in your mouth. What remains under the sun vents and becomes a pillow under the towel to end the week of puzzles comfortably. The ball that today, at the age of thirty, I want to catch with all my might if they always play, the children. It’s the Super Santos, the ball of the Italian summer.