57 years have passed since his first debut in Serie A, when in the 1966-1967 championship Lamberto Boranga takes the field to defend the goal of Fiorentina. From there a career as a champion. He has seen and heard a lot of football, first as a player and then as a doctor (while he was a goalkeeper he was also studying at the university). Today he goes back in memory trying to give further testimony to the doping issue in football, reopened in the most dramatic way after the death of Gianluca Vialli, and to possible connections with serious pathologies. The latest fears were those of Marco Tardelli: together with Dino Baggio, Massimo Brambati, Florin Răducioiu and again Claudio Lotito, he wonders if all those drugs taken constantly and often without controls, during an extraordinary career, can now be a concrete risk of the onset of the same diseases that in recent years have led to the deaths of many of his colleagues. Specialist in cardiology, in sports medicine and in internal medicine, Lamberto Boranga is able to talk about the dual track of who was an athlete first and then a doctor, still a point of reference for many patients.
Boranga, you played in the period immediately before the Vialli era, you clashed several times with Marco Tardelli, you lived through important periods of transition for sports medicine and anti-doping. Reminiscent of drug abuse or not?
«In our times we used to take pasticchine and pasticchine all the time. It was normal for the doctor to prescribe them: many increased concentration during the game, the desire to play, the drive to run. All of this was especially good for a goalkeeper like me. But I’m not talking about anabolics yet, it was the period just before».
So what did he get? The Micoren often mentioned by his colleagues?
«Micoren was among the most used. It is a respiratory analeptic, capable of actually increasing the respiratory act: if you normally take in three liters of air per breath, with Micoren you can take in a little more, thus increasing resistance. But the real problem is how much one chose to acquire: some players also took 10 pills all together. That’s the point. If you do a therapy with aspirin and you take one gram, you won’t suffer any consequences, you won’t have stomach hemorrhages and things like that, if you take ten it will be very probable. There were also drops of Micoren, 10 were placed on the sugar cube. The problem there too is that many players took over 20 and 30. When I played in Brescia I saw teammates who took an avalanche. An immoderate use that can also have harmful effects from the point of view of the liver and pancreas ».
What was the mechanism behind the overdose system? Was it the doctor who advised? The footballer who abused it?
«At the base was the doctor’s inability to keep the situation under control. Then it was the same players who, once they perceived the positive effects of standard dosages, chose to take completely arbitrary and certainly not downward quantities. The doctor comes to the locker room, tells you “this is good for you”, you are often ignorant, you don’t have an approach to verifying even contraindications and therefore you take as long as you think is good for you. But in many cases it must be said that they were the athletic trainers the real problem”.
Were they the ones pushing overdoses?
«They stood as doctors, wandering around the teams almost as sainti: «This is good, take a little more». When anabolic steroids arrived in the 80s it was worse. I have witnessed several positives. At the time, athletics was the queen of anabolic steroids, the doctors of the discipline, together with those of cycling, then brought the mechanism also to football. The athletic trainers have taken advantage of it more than anyone ».
And the companies in all this?
«Often they were the first to push for “something” to be given to the athletes. “I see these guys a little dull, let’s give him something“, was one of the most typical phrases. A trivial reasoning I would say but unfortunately at the basis of the distribution of drugs ».
Speaking of drugs, do you only remember Micoren?
«The same mechanism also concerned the creatine: if it is ascertained that 3 grams a day improves muscle activity, 20 grams begin to have the same effect as an anabolic steroid. Then in the 80s, more or less also in Vialli’s own years, came the corticosteroidsheavily used: a group of synthesized steroid hormones in the adrenal cortex, become doping only later. They are drugs that also activate part of the liver and pancreas. Cortisone is a powerful anti-inflammatory, which is administered intra-articularly without major harmful effects. But if it is administered intramuscularly, as often happened, it enters the circulation in a much more pervasive way. Without forgetting the problem of quantities».
What was your relationship with drugs?
«Il Mico’s it was given to me too, then there were solutions of cortisone and tachypirine in the vein that put you back into the world, and then I also used to take a small tablet of a substance similar tochemical amphetamine».
Similar to amphetamine in what sense?
“The chemical basis I think it was pollinator. I took it because I had to stay focused. When they considered it doping, I stopped taking it”
Have you ever been afraid for the uses of the drugs you have made?
“I’ve reached 80. And the prescription dosages I’ve stuck to have never given me reason to fear. Of course, if I had been inconsiderate in the dosages, perhaps I would have taken some risk, especially after my career”.
Has he not exceeded even once?
«Yes, with the Pemolina, I remember that I had to take an exam at the university, at a time when I was still playing. I needed a lot of concentration. That time I bombed myself in the most wrong way. After a while I perceived a very strong tachycardia, I remember reaching my doctor brother’s room on all fours. But mine was a completely sporadic mistake. If done constantly, certainly the damages risk being others. Is substance abuse harmful and who did it cannot rule out consequences. Although let me remind you that many of the players who stop playing also end up leading a healthy life in terms of nutrition, training and rest. Smoking, bad food and unruly living cannot be elements to be overlooked when we are talking above all about tumors».
In 1977 Renato Curi died at the age of just 24, among the youngest to have died on the pitch. What do you remember about that day?
«It was October 30, my birthday. At the time I was a councilor of the Italian footballers’ association. Renato died in Perugia, I played in Palermo with Varese. I went up to the bus stop after a 0-0 draw and they told me “Curi is dead”».
What was said in internal circles about sudden death?
«There was not the slightest mention of doping or the use of drugs. The connection was immediately with his heart disease of the rheumatic type. The fact is, however, that there was no post-mortem diagnosis, Curi did not even have an autopsy”.
Were there players more subjected than others to the “helpers”?
«The squads were limited, so it was difficult to replace a fundamental player: he had to be brought onto the field in every way. A problem that I also remember having suffered firsthand».
In addition to the link with cancer, the link with ALS is also at the center of suspicion. The president of the Mario Negri Institute, Silvio Garattini, spoke of the need for a maxi study, also denouncing the lack of willingness on the part of the FIGC to collaborate. Fear?
«I don’t think it’s a matter of silence, rather of other priority, the economic ones in the first place …. I believe that the abuse of anti-inflammatories among football players has had a great weight on ALS, as well as excessive training, another major issue. I have always witnessed too heavy workloads, and athletic trainers still need to understand that it takes balance and rest to ensure the good health of the player: three games a week is not good. We need to act with a minimum of common sense if we want to preserve people even when they stop playing, because then the biggest problems come at that point».
From what he has said so far, the line between pharmacology and doping has often been too thin. What advice do you give to players, or aspiring players?
«Today, with respect to the question of drugs, I believe that football players are more intelligent, that they take things with more awareness and not even so willingly. To those who have just started I say: take vitamins in prescription dosages, guarantee yourself a rest and a healthy diet. Technique is learned with training and not with medicines».
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