Savings, silences and victories, Zoff 80 years of a legend

Pesaro, Juan Diego Florez tenor and artistic director of the Rof:

The 80 years of a myth. Dino Zoff will make them next Monday, February 28th. He is the only Italian footballer to have won both the World Cup and the European Championships, in 1968 and 1982. It is his arms that raised the Cup in Spain and were then immortalized by Renato Guttuso and a postage stamp. Again his hands that blocked on the line the possible draw of Brazil at Sarrià, with a final hug to the ball that he knew of paternal reassurance. Zoff was the champion who got up after the criticisms for the goals from long shots in Argentina ’78, and became a legend four years later with the World Cup won in the final against Germany under the eyes of Pertini, then companion of scopone in the plane. In 80 years of taciturn epos, as a “decent person” as he likes to define himself, Zoff as well as captain of Bearzot’s national team was coach, national team coach, manager, noble father of Italian football even when this had gone far beyond his sense of proportion.
Zoff is the finished face on the covers of Time and Newsweek, the number one of the number one who played with Burgnich and Facchetti to get up to Pablito Rossi and then Bergomi, and who was Sivori’s rival and then partner and Maradona’s opponent, testifying to a unique career also in terms of longevity. Four years after the goals scored by Nelinho and Dirceu, he also took revenge on Brazil, because that day at the Sarrià in Barcelona the torcida wept not only for Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick but also for Superdino’s parade on Oscàr’s header. (“I was afraid, a terrible fear”). Zoff was also able to assert himself as a coach, coming to touch the European title with the blue (lost in 2000 to a ‘golden goal’ by Trezeguet) and second to none in dignity when, shortly after the continental tournament, he resigned due to the criticism of the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for not having Zinedine Zidane marked in the final. In short, a character similar to another great Friulian like him, that Enzo Bearzot with whom Dino understood himself immediately, with a simple glance, and to whom he gave a caress before lifting the Cup at the Bernabeu.
But Zoff was also a collector of championships at Juventus (“the one I loved most was perhaps the 1972 -73 team, with Haller, Causio, Bettega, or rather speed, class and imagination”, he let himself go once ), forcing people who might have been the owner elsewhere, such as Piloni, Bodini and Alessandrelli, into the role of eternal bench. Too bad only for that goal scored by Magath in the final of the Champions Cup against Hamburg in Athens. A few days later, on June 2, 1983, he announced his retirement, unable to hide a certain emotion and explaining that “even age cannot be warded off”.
In black and white, Zoff cultivated a fraternal friendship with another great champion, and a man of few words like him, Gaetano Scirea, and the boy who dreamed of becoming a footballer, and staying in goal, but who in the meantime was a mechanic because even with engines he knew how to do it.
In Friuli at the time of the Marianese they noticed him almost immediately, but not Peppino Meazza, another champion, who rejected him at an audition for Inter. So he ends up at Udinese, where at 19 he takes 5 goals from Fiorentina: it seems the premature end of a career, but even then Zoff has the strength to recover.
After two difficult years in Udine he goes to Mantua to see his mentor ‘China’ Bonizzoni; there he found Simoni, Giagnoni, Sormani and Schnellinger as teammates. Four years in a big way and then off to Naples, which blows him to Milan, to play with Altafini, Sivori, Juliano and live a basically strange love, on the one hand he is a closed and thoughtful man and on the other a city symbol of extroversion . At that point Zoff is already someone and the alternation in the national team with Ricky Albertosi, also an alter ego in his character, is born. At the ’68 European, the year of student protests and the Olimpico illuminated by torches and lighters, Zoff is the owner of the European championship won against Yugoslavia, then at the World Championships in Mexico ’70 it’s up to Albertosi who will go all the way, to the final and the 4 goals scored by O Rei Pele and the other jugglers in horde.
Then, in the summer of 1972, the great adventure in Juventus began, eleven seasons with six league titles, a Uefa Cup, the Coppa Italia twice and a series of records. In between the burning disappointment of the ’74 World Cup in Germany, the fierce criticism after Argentina (“he no longer sees us, he does not see shots from afar”), the triumph of the Bernabeu and that game of scopone on the plane towards Italy, with Bearzot, Causio and President Pertini, ‘scolded’ even after years for a badly played card. Other times, of course, yet always current. Because a myth has no age.

Source: Ansa

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