I Think Therefore I Play (10 page)

I glimpsed the end of the line: the journey was over. The story was finished and so was I. I walked with my head bowed even in the places I hold most dear. It wasn’t to avoid sympathetic glances, just that when you don’t know where you’re going, looking ahead makes you tired and worried.

People talk about performance anxiety. Well, ‘non-performance’ anxiety is the perfect description for those of us who simply vanished from the pitch sometime during that final. The match in Istanbul was on May 25 and the Italian championship had yet to finish. We had to go back to Milanello to carry our cross for four more days, right up until Sunday, May 29, when we played our last Serie A match against Udinese. That parade of shame was the toughest punishment. A cavalcade of disgrace with us placed front and centre.

It was a brief, intense, shitty period. You couldn’t escape or pull the plug on a world that had turned upside down, and you were forever surrounded by the other guilty parties in this theft of our own dignity. We always ended up talking about it. We asked each other questions, but nobody had any answers. We were a group of Gigi Marzullos
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called to a collective psychoanalysis session with one fairly sizeable flaw: there wasn’t any doctor, just a bunch of madmen. One thought he was Shevchenko, another Crespo, another Gattuso, Seedorf, Nesta, Kaká… I thought I was Pirlo. A gathering of impostors, too many to get away with it.

I could hardly sleep and even when I did drop off, I awoke to a grim thought: I’m disgusting. I can’t play any more. I went to bed with Dudek and all his Liverpool team-mates. The game against Udinese ended 0-0, goals a perfect stranger. A nightmare is a nightmare because you know it’ll start when you close your eyes but won’t stop when you reopen them, and so the torment went on.

We Milan players still had Italy commitments to (dis)honour, and it took Lippi only a few seconds to see precisely how things stood. “My boys, my boys, you’re in bits.” Congratulations on your intuition, Marcello. A blind man would have noticed – our devastation was legible even in braille. “Thanks for coming anyway,” he said.

None of us could think straight. I greeted the staff at the training centre as if it was the last time I’d see them. In my head, that
was
the last time. Going off and doing something else with my life had to be better than feeling like this.

Painfully slowly, things started to improve during the holidays, even if the wounds didn’t heal completely. The first day, I wanted to throw myself into a swimming pool with no water. The second day, there’d have been water, but I still wouldn’t have wanted to re-emerge. The third day, I wanted to drown in the kids’ pool. On the fourth, I’d have preferred to suffocate giving mouth to mouth to a rubber duck. I was getting better, but pretty much imperceptibly.

I’ll never fully shake that sense of absolute impotence when destiny is at work. The feeling will cling to my feet forever, trying to pull me down. Even now if I mess up a pass, that malign force could be to blame. For that reason, I steer well clear of the DVD from the Liverpool game. It’s an enemy that I can’t allow to wound me a second time. It’s already done enough damage: most of it hidden far from the surface.

I’ll never watch that match again. I’ve already played it once in person and many other times in my head, searching for an explanation that perhaps doesn’t even exist. Praying for a different ending, like with those films you watch a second time hoping that you misunderstood the final scene. Surely the good guy can’t die like that?

We rose again two years later, 2007, when we beat the self-same Liverpool in another Champions League final. We won in Athens thanks to an Inzaghi double – one of the goals was a free-kick from me that hit off him and went in.
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The intensity of our joy was nothing compared to the deafening sound of our weaponry crashing to the ground a couple of years earlier. They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. Well, there was still a little warmth left in the corpse at that stage and, as such, we celebrated but didn’t forget. We wanted to, but couldn’t. The stain remained.

So much so that it was suggested we hang a black funeral pall as a permanent reminder on the walls of Milanello, right next to the images of triumph. A message to future generations that feeling invincible is the first step on the path to the point of no return.

Personally, I’d add that horrendous result to the club’s honours board. I’d write it slap bang in the middle of the list of leagues and cups they’ve won, in a different coloured ink and perhaps a special font, just to underline its jarring presence. It would be embarrassing but, at the same time, it would enhance the worth of the successes alongside.

It’s a trick that some housewives have perfected. They’ll go to the supermarket and throw all sorts of big-brand goods into the trolley: San Daniele ham, Panna water, expensive parmesan cheese, Barolo wine. Then they’ll chuck in a plain, sad little yoghurt that looks out of place beside the rest. When they get the shopping home, the husband and kids see the yoghurt. It’s not what any of them would have picked, and they find the courage to pipe up. “Mamma, dearest, never buy that yoghurt again.”

They see it for what it is: a huge mistake, a plunge in style, an exception that reinforces the rule. Thanks to that interloper in the trolley, the rest stands out. The housewife, with her shrewd intelligence, had it mapped out all along. A perfect plan to extol and encourage certain tastes by sacrificing another. Her family will never find that plain old yoghurt in the fridge again, just as I hope never to experience another night like May 25, 2005. I wouldn’t be able to cope, even if I was a cat on my ninth and final life. I’d rather commit suicide by taking a stroll through a cage of ravenous Dobermans.

There are always lessons to be found in the darkest moments. It’s a moral obligation to dig deep and find that little glimmer of hope or pearl of wisdom. You might hit upon an elegant phrase that stays with you and makes the journey that little less bitter. I’ve tried with Istanbul and haven’t managed to get beyond these words: for fuck’s sake.

 

31.
Milan were 3–0 up at half-time through goals from Paolo Maldini and Hernan Crespo (2). Liverpool hit back after the break, Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso all getting on the scoresheet. There were no further goals in extra time. Liverpool won 3–2 on penalties

32.
Woody Allen’s mockumentary

33.
Gigi Marzullo is a high-profile Italian talk-show host

34.
Inzaghi’s goals came right on the stroke of half-time and in the 82nd minute. Dirk Kuyt scored for Liverpool in the dying moments, but Milan held on to win 2–1

Chapter 13

That’s right: for fuck’s sake. Double fuck. The first words that come to my lips when I think of Istanbul. For me, it’s now the capital of evil and forced cursing. Swearing’s my release, and the one weapon I have to defend myself against destiny when it elects to strike without pity. I’m not superstitious, so I’ve got to have something to cling to.

Others go in for some real heavy stuff. People like Alberto Gilardino, my one-time team-mate with Milan and Italy, put their faith in witchcraft. Most of the items in his kitbag are real ‘model footballer’ territory: Dolce and Gabbana dressing gown, Dolce and Gabbana slippers, Dolce and Gabbana suit, Dolce and Gabbana briefs, Dolce and Gabbana glasses, Dolce and Gabbana cologne, and L’Oreal hair gel – only because Dolce and Gabbana don’t make it.

But he’d always slip a pair of stinky old boots in there as well. We’re talking ancient, ugly, tatty things with wobbly studs. Archaeological relics, if truth be told, but he treated them like treasure and they were always spotlessly clean. He’d shine them up, caress them; sometimes he’d even talk to them and kiss them. Mental stuff.

As they looked like something Attila the Hun might have played in, our kit supplier made him promise not to wear them in competitive games. They sat him down to explain that Sandro Pertini had long since stopped playing cards on planes,
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that you couldn’t buy a black-and-white TV any more, and that John F Kennedy had been assassinated. This last piece of news in particular always seemed to take him aback (“are you serious?”), but he’d soon gather himself and his pride, saying: “I’m not chucking these boots away.”

“But why, Gila? They’ve got more holes than a slice of Emmental.”

“Because I’ve scored a shedload of goals in them. If I put them in the bag I take to the ground, they’ll transmit the fluid to my new boots.”

“The fluid?”

“The magic fluid.”

“Oh Gila…”

“Honestly. And the more I put them in with my other kit, the better the chances that the magic fluid will come out the soles and spread to the new boots. Fingers crossed it’ll work right away and have the desired effect.”

“So first they need to be squeezed like lemons, then you sprinkle the juice on the other ones?”

“Spot on Andrea. Finally someone who understands. It doesn’t take a genius.”

“You’re right about that – it doesn’t take a genius…”

From what I know, the boots date back to when he played for Biellese
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or thereabouts. Years later, just the sight of those wrecks with their frayed laces was enough to make him regress and lose his mind. They were his lucky charm – without them he felt lost.

“If I’ve got them with me, I’ll score goals. If I leave them at home by mistake, I’ll ask the boss to stick me on the bench, because there’s no way I’ll do anything good without them.”

Whatever you think of Gila’s little quirk, it’s considerably better than the more invasive ritual favoured by Filippo Inzaghi. Simply put, he crapped. Crapped a hell of a lot. That isn’t a bad thing in itself, but the fact he’d do it at the ground, in our dressing room, just before the game, got on our nerves somewhat. Especially if the dressing room was small – a stink like that in such a confined space can get a little overpowering. Often he’d go three or four times in the space of 10 minutes.

“It brings me luck, boys,” he’d say.

I’d heard that was the case if you stepped in it. That producing it and smelling it had the same effect was certainly news to me.

“It doesn’t do much for us, Pippo,” we’d say. “What have you been eating, anyway – a dead body?”

Inzaghi’s answer was always the same. “Plasmons.”

In hindsight, it was pointless even asking. We all knew those baby biscuits were what Pippo ate at all hours, every single day. He was a 40-year-old newborn. And when he came to the end of a pack, he had to leave two biscuits at the bottom. Not one, not three: two. “That way the stars will stay aligned in my favour.” Ah yes, the famous alignment of the stars and baby biscuits.

“For goodness sake, don’t touch the last couple. You’ll just upset the balance,” he’d say. The intestinal one, most likely.

We tried everything to steal the last two from him, but never had any joy. He guarded them jealously, as selfish with his snacks as he was when it came to passing the ball. “I’m doing it for your own good, boys. You need my goals.”

There was the same self-enforced monotony about the other things he ate. Plain pasta with a little bit of tomato sauce and cured beef for lunch. Plain pasta with a little bit of tomato sauce and cured beef for dinner. That was his lifelong menu. He behaved in the same way at the table as he did in the opposition penalty box. Always doing the same thing, without any great imagination or flair, but with maximum efficiency.

At meal times, he’d sit and wait for the waiter to bring the dishes, almost as if he wanted to be spoon-fed. During games, he’d sit and wait for the ball to somehow bounce off him and end up in the net.

And he’d always have on the same pair of boots. They were good for all seasons and he cherished them with a rather suspicious level of devotion. Over the years I’ve realised that all forwards are fetishists. Pippo’s boots didn’t have any magic fluid, but they did have loads of patches. Like Gilardino’s, they dated back to the dawn of time, but there was a clear difference in the outlook of the respective owners.

“I’m well aware these boots are destroyed, but I’m going to keep playing in them,” Pippo would say. “Nobody’s ever going to change my mind. These are the only soft ones going.”

“What are you on about?” we’d ask. “All boots that professional players use are soft.”

“Nope, you’re wrong. Only these ones are.”

He was completely crazy but harmless. A really nice fruitcake, if you like.

Sebastiano Rossi
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wasn’t much better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). He was a great big bear of a goalkeeper, over two metres tall and with a truly inexplicable obsession. When the team warmed up before a game, nobody could walk behind him. Under his strict house rules it was absolutely prohibited. “It’s bad luck: you’d be as well sticking an own goal past me right now,” he’d say.

Everyone at Milan knew about this quirk, but we weren’t about to let on to our opponents. Guys like Angelo Peruzzi,
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his fellow keeper who happened to be playing at our ground one day. Now, at the San Siro there’s a little gym where both teams warm up. Rossi was busy doing an exercise with our trainer and had his back glued to his favourite wall. It so happened that he dropped a ball and had to take a couple of steps forward to retrieve it. At that precise moment, he saw Peruzzi coming over. Walking quite calmly, headed straight for him.

Rossi instantly abandoned what he was doing and, to stop Peruzzi in his tracks, wedged himself between him and the wall. We all heard the commotion, followed by these words: “Get out of here, this is private property. Nobody walks behind me.” It was as if he’d stuck up one of those signs you see with a picture of a dog with a line through it, replacing the face with that of Peruzzi.

There wasn’t a scene purely because Peruzzi knew you don’t attack crazy people. You smile, nod and agree.