As a player and then as president he gave unforgettable victories. He did not tolerate long hair
tORINO
The clear eyes of Gampiero Boniperti have gone out forever in an early summer night, now they are smiling inside a black and white album to be leafed through with a hint of awe: a legend, and that’s no way to say, the Italian Santiago Bernabeu, symbol of Juventus and a monument of football beyond the barriers of supporters. A romantic football, now tarnished memory, where the clenched hands were worth more than a signature and the champions were not so far from the people, where the presidents were fathers and the business did not contaminate the emotions.
The first contract with Juventus was signed on 22 May 1946, inside the underpass of the Municipal stadium that led from the lawn to the changing rooms. The coach Felice Borel, after being well impressed in an audition, wanted to see him again in a test between the Reserves and the Fossano: he finished 7-0 and he scored 7 goals, they handed him the pen as soon as he left the field. He began an epic made up of dribbling and virtuosity, especially of goals: for each, as a reward, he had agreed to have a cow that he personally went to choose in the Agnelli farms, and the farmers complained because he always carried away the pregnant ones. He started as a center forward, closed as a midfielder, won five league titles and two Italian cups, played with John Charles and Omar Sivori one of the most fascinating tridents ever, established himself as an international talent (best in the field in the Rest of the world where he was called up, unique Italian, to celebrate 90 years of the English federation), resisted the lure of other big clubs.
Toro also courted him, at the suggestion of Valentino Mazzola, he accepted the invitation of the president Ferruccio Novo out of kindness but he didn’t even listen to the proposal: “I’m from Juve, I can’t,” he said simply. He wore the grenade shirt just once, in a charity match in memory of the Grande Torino, the rest were fierce yet correct derby: “If I could I would abolish them – he said -, the derby consumes me: I love Juve too much and I have so much respect for the Bull that cannot be otherwise ».
He left football in 1961, after the famous 9-1 over Inter took the field with the kids in protest. At the end of the race, without warning, he took off his shoes and handed them to the storekeeper: “Here, I don’t need them anymore.” He remained in the managerial cadres and in ’71 he became president, built a great Juve and won even more than as a footballer, he taught an iron discipline (“Show up with short and tidy hair” he recommended in the meeting letters) and focused strongly on style and on the image of the club. Nine league titles arrived, two Italian cups and the first international trophies in history: the Champions Cup, Uefa, Uefa Super Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup. Proverbial, like the stands abandoned at the end of the first half and the prosecutors left outside the goal, the negotiations with the players on salaries: to reject requests for increases, he sometimes showed photos of modest opponents with whom he had happened to lose or clippings of newspaper that reported opaque performances, and so, in one fell swoop, he took corporate interests and prodded his boys.
He resigned in ’90, when Juventus attempted a new course and an aesthetic revolution, which quickly failed, with Gigi Maifredi, but after a brief experience as blue head of delegation at the 90 World Cup, he returned as CEO for a three-year period, winning another Uefa cup. . Out of Juve in the era of Antonio Giraudo and Luciano Moggi, he reappeared as honorary president after Calciopoli.
However, he never ceased to be the custodian of Juventus and a moving episode recounts it. In 2000, when Carlo Parola died, Boniperti wanted to tie the tie of his old social uniform around his neck: “I did it – he said – even if I didn’t have operational roles, but he had brought elegance, elegance and glory to Juventus”. Even Boniperti, indeed more: on the last trip we imagine him with a beautiful black and white tie. –