And he seems to want to prove it to us.
When on 24 February, on the occasion of the 26th day of the championship, Frosinone e Parma they meet, they experience diametrically opposite states of form. The Ciociari are at the top of the standings with a margin of 15 points over the third; they come from seven consecutive useful results and are sailing in serenity towards promotion. Parma, on the other hand, is in the throes of a schizophrenic trend: they are out of the playoff area and recently suffered a searing home defeat against Ascoli. In short, the prerequisites for a comfortable victory for the hosts seem to be there, if it weren’t for a detail as singular as it is significant on the performance of the team Pecchia.
Parma, in fact, has reached the surreal dimension of constancy in the inconstancy: since the eighth day they have not repeated the result of the previous match. Never two wins, two draws or two defeats in a row: for 18 days (they will be 24 in the end) Parma is a mad variable, the nightmare – but for the more experienced the joy – of bettors. The first half of the match in Frosinone seems to confirm this trend: Parma goes into the break at 3-1 and seems to be in full control of the match. However, as often happens, especially at Parma this season, calm is only a passing condition, the prelude to an impending drama. Within 10 minutes Frosinone shortens the distance and goes into numerical superiority, to then rebalance the match 20 minutes from the end. The ducals, at the end of their strength, are preparing to suffer the assault of Frosinone, pushed by the ravenous public of the Stirpe.
A handful of seconds after Moro’s goal, however, the unthinkable happened. Franco Vazquez, author of the goal that unlocked the match, catches the ball on the opposing trocar, is surrounded by opposing jerseys but not with great pressure; he therefore has that fraction of a second necessary to stop the ball and turn towards the goal. With two touches, first with the right and then with the left, he settles the ball on the weak foot, the right to be precise, and with negligible ease he sends a soft shot behind Turati, essential in his execution. A glimpse of light generated from nowhere, which he incontrovertibly decides a race addressed on other tracks.
Vazqueztoday released after the conclusion of the two-year contract signed in the summer of 2021, for Parma it was this: like an earthly version of the myth of Sisyphus, he took charge of the ambitions of the entire team, driving it upwards every week, to then find themselves back to square one every time, betrayed by a squad unfit to compete in a top championship.
The one against Frosinone is the 21st of 25 gol made in Parma in two seasons, to which must be added 11 assists, for a total of 36 gol propitiated on the 96 made by the ducals in these two seasons. All while wandering around the field to satisfy the wishes of three different coaches, all three with different ideas on the position to fill, but not on the tasks to be entrusted to him. Since his debut with the Parma shirt, Franco Vazquez was the deus ex machina of eleven at the time of Enzo Maresca; the safe harbor in which to dock in times of difficulty and the offensive lighthouse from which to be illuminated to generate dangers.
The style, albeit dusty at times, has remained that of the years in Palermo: with increasingly thinning hair and a heavy step, the Period he drags himself around the field identifying the areas from which to scan the scenario to pilot Parma’s offensive maneuver. His kick looks like it came out of an Instagram account post Slow Lifea collector of very short clips in which scenes of common life are filmed from which calm, relaxation, serenity exude. Vazquez, with imperceptible body feints, sole tunnels, sudden braking to gain a foul, drags us into a dimension far from the ideal that modern football chases, and perhaps found only in minor contexts where times are more dilated and opponents less reactive and explosive. Also Iachinia prosaic coach in the interpretation of football but fundamental in Vazquez’s growth path, underlined his ability to link the game and unpredictability, two qualities that made him the main responsible for both the refinement and the finalization of the actions of the Parma.
Improvisation, imagination, instinct: in the few interviews granted, Vazquez often uses these words to describe his being. “I’ve been playing football like this since I’ve had the use of reason”, he says, responding to those who want to investigate the nature of his game. To tell a sophisticated countercultural football in its most extreme variant, he spares no references to his childhood, to the street football that forged his technique and spirit: “The potrero is this: shrewdness, knowing how to control a ball even when it doesn’t take the bounce you’d expect, adapting to a whole series of situations and obsessions that keep you one step ahead of players who didn’t grow up there.”
When he chooses Parma he does it because he is looking for a team that can make him central to the project, after years of honest support in Sevilla first by Sampaoli and then by Lopetegui, with less relevant interregnums. He embraces an ambitious project and the vision of the volcanic Kyle Krausegenerous in putting his hand on his wallet but short-sighted in his approach to a championship full of traps like the Serie B. Vazquez’s first Parma is a utopia: rookie coach, who grew up watching Pep Guardiola closely, leading a group made up of old foxes in the category and young rampants looking for a stage.
The reality, however, is often brutal: Maresca from Guardiola he seems to have inherited only the look, as well as a taste for futuristic ideas but, in his case, without having full knowledge of the human material available. The team, on the other hand, will prove to be a shapeless and dysfunctional mass of kids unable to immerse themselves in the context of Serie B and more experienced players unable to keep the pieces together. While Krause’s project sinks, day after day, the flame of Franco Vazquez continues to burn and the meaning of Parma matches is reduced to the veneration of his inspiration.
In the match against the Monza, just over halfway through the first half, receives a ball on the left side of the opposing trocar. The opponent in charge of countering him, perhaps intimidated by the possibility of being dribbled, stalls, creating a Mexican-style stalemate that lasts for a few seconds, until Vazquez breaks the delay by moving the ball to the left. He does it lazily, the idea being that he can cross for his teammates who have filled the area in the meantime. Instead he kicks on goal, and he does it with a very sweet lob that dies behind the opposing goalkeeper, making the desperate dive in vain. A goal that condenses the wit in reading the wrong position of the goalkeeper and the genius which, paraphrasing Schopenauer, we could define as the ability to identify a solution that others cannot even imagine.
Between the overly brainy football of Maresca and the arid one of Iachini, Parma closes on the right side of the standings, hoisting themselves on the top step of the podium of the big disappointments of the season. Krause collects and raises betting on the proponent of the Cremonese miracle, Fabio Pecchia, confirming the centrality of Vazquez and the modus operandi in the formation of the squad, married since his inauguration. As a good preacher of 4231, Pecchia entrusts the trocar to the Periodobtaining the approval of the player.
Vazquez speaks of attacking midfielders as an endangered species, a minority ostracized by the logic of a football based on physicality: “No one uses the classic 10 anymore, you have to adapt to other positions and add new aspects to your game, otherwise playing becomes difficult”. Vazquez is a bit stoked, but continues to offer moments of authentic beauty. Against the Perugia he pounces on a half-height ball about 25 meters from the goal, bends his body to better coordinate himself and unloads a blow that slices the air and slips under the top corner. One of those goals that remains tattooed in the eyes of those who have the privilege of seeing it live.
He once again stands among the best dribblers in the category, differentiating himself from the others Case e It’s a shape for the mode of gesture. His is a cerebral dribbling, based on elusiveness, without being able to draw in any way from an athleticism now reduced to a minimum. In Palermo it matched technique and power. Although not a thunderbolt of war, he exploited his broad shoulders and power in his lower limbs to grind ball and chain meters and overcome his opponents. Now his dribbling has been stripped of any physical component and has become a more defensive tool than an offensive one: it is used to keep possession, give the break, send the opponents off the pace. Sometimes it’s an intimidating gesture, an expression of manifest superiority to make the opponent give up and ease the pressure.
As expected, the Parma the lack of balance pays off and Pecchia decides to sacrifice his striker to insert another midfielder. Vazquez is nominally moved to the number 9 slot, which he obviously plays in his own way, but without a center forward to be used as a bait for the opposing defenses, his game loses brilliance. He no longer has that decisive ability which in the last two years in Palermo allowed him to emerge in a disastrous context; now he needs a functional team that embraces his strengths and masks his limitations. Coach and players who can make it the Sun of their system.
Today, when the ID reads 34, read the name of Franco Vazquez in the free agent list he is alienating; a depressing, albeit momentary, interlude. His agent spoke of various interests between Italy and abroad, without however giving further information on the player’s future. The tears after the defeat in the playoff semifinal against Cagliari, perhaps also the result of the awareness of having completed a journey, marked the Periodwho said he was embittered by the lack of a renewal proposal by the Parma.
It is not indicative but it is certainly significant that, in a dysfunctional context, it was the only functioning gear that paid, the totem to which the entire city had clung in these two years stingy with satisfaction. A singular decision, disputed by many, but which highlights how the presence of an all-encompassing player like Vazquez is an honor but also a burden that not everyone wants to shoulder. Time passes for everyone, even for those with a talent that is apparently impervious to ageing, but it would be fascinating to see a team take it upon themselves to entrust their destiny to the anachronistic but still bewitching football of Mudo Vázquez.