(ANSA) – ROME, JUL 15 – “That change was epochal: in the youth sectors they didn’t teach you to take the back pass with your feet, but I had played for Milan with the best defenders in the world and to hold the ball with your hands. is that there was too much need: for this reason, when I was the first to face the new rule, I felt good all in all “. Francesco Antonioli among the many positive memories of his career also has that of being the first Italian goalkeeper to have to play with the new Fifa rule, which came into force exactly 30 years ago, which forbade you to block the passage back to the extreme with your hands. defender.
A rule decided to avoid the excessive waste of time that, in Italy ’90, reached peaks never reached before, and to favor the flow of the game. Thus, Antonioli at the debut of Olympic Italy against the USA in Barcelona ’92, on July 24, a few hours after the rule came into force, paid the bill for that address, but for another mistake, much more venial : on 2-0 for the Azzurri, after a parade he held the ball in his hands a second longer than allowed and the referee whistled a punishment to two in the area, with a tax system born of the new philosophy.
“Frankly, I don’t remember much about that episode, also because 30 years have passed”, says Antonioli on the phone with ANSA -. I knew how to use the feet, I got along well with the new rule – says Antonioli – to the point that I won two championships: two with … my hands, in Milan, and one with my … feet, in Rome. Now maybe a little exaggeration is to let the goalkeepers play with their feet, sometimes they could do without them. The goalkeeper often does what the coach tells him “. (ANSA).
Source: Ansa
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