This Italian football is not normal

How difficult it is to write certain articles: the tide of tragicomic news goes on incessantly without the pen being able to follow it. The Saudis go shopping in a Europe reduced to football discounters, Gravina and TV rights, Gravina and Mancini, Gravina Mancini and Spalletti, Gravina Mancini Spalletti and De Laurentiis. Not to mention the melancholy soap operas out there: We’re Tired, Boss. It is to be hoped that the long hot soccer summer – local and not only – ready soon: and yes, for an Italian it is serious to evoke the end of the warm season, but so be it.

Why There had never been a summer like this before: administrative and corporate indecencies, negotiations worthy of the late Maurizio Mosca and the iconic Pendulum, and players who, in their prime, choose to forego competitive success in favor of gargantuan salaries.

It’s evident how the World Cup in Qatar – thanks to the economic fallout from the pandemic – has forever redefined the characteristics of a kick destined to become something else As far as we’re used to, it’s more akin to a Hollywood system than a sport. However, if it is to be pure entertainment, with the actors transforming into multinationals in their own right, attention must be paid to the impersonal and economic evolution that it entails, and that separates it from the agonism and competition that it should, will distinguish its essential figures.

Of course, neither the profession that athletes build on their own image (think of the Air Jordan brand) nor fame (think of Adriano Panatta) are not new phenomena: however, if the will to maximize profits is linked to one’s notoriety and While technical ability is untouchable, this is a very different and more serious phenomenon the exodus of players who at the peak of his career – Manè, Milinkovic-Savic, Fabinho, Kessie, etc. – decide to winter early in places where football is played gets you talking hardly for a trivial cheer.

This dimension does not concern football, e.g It’s not normal that it’s normal. However, it is also true that we have no noble and virtuous idea to pursue and fight: the situation of Italian football is catastrophic in every respect. The inconsistency of a transfer market that has never been so bad – not at all revived by a Lukaku’s stomach ache while they can afford 70m for Tonali in the Premier – betrays the unfortunate demise of our Major League. Not to mention the situation with the minors.

Last season ended with the useless and ridiculous Juventus justice epic and a championship distorted in its own way (let’s go with a cliché: only in Italy!); One more lap, one more race and Series B – in the It now seems normal for companies to go bankrupt every year – Reboots to the exclusion of Reggina in favor of Lecco, in a back and forth of managers, fixers and scammers who yearn between courts and sport in search of smoky sophistry and improbable solutions.

I’ve been in Italy since 2000 loser Nearly 200 clubs professionals. two hundred. 9 per year. But even that seems “normal” to us now.

At the end of the grayest August in recent years came the retirement of CT Mancini, an Italian tragedy in four acts (Mancini, Gravina, Spalletti, De Laurentiis) that could be broadcast worldwide if only Gabriele Gravina – the most naked of naked kings – were – could find an agreement on the rights of our leagueswhich, understandably, no platform is willing to spend €1 billion on and which is being discussed on a random but symbolic date like 9/11.

Football – Italian football in particular – is now an expendable void where enthusiasts and fans remain lost on time and are the only ones to carry on with the game at the end of their economic irrelevance; The football of the future, on the other hand, fueled by ever-increasing popularity on social media, swarms and whirls about itself, perhaps progressing but certainly not growing, and the media is even weaving it praise her.

In this Babylon, we commentators can at least wear the indiscreet glasses of skepticism and invigorate ourselves with the noble spirit of doubt to highlight the pathologies of a sport that is in danger of no longer being a sport. Without falling into traditionalism or unnecessary nostalgiaLet’s try the path of resilience (sic!) and ataraxia (better), knowing that it’s not normal, that it’s normal and that this long summer – it’s almost over! – An equally warm autumn will undoubtedly follow: unfortunately, the problem is certainly not seasonal.