We left him in May 2015, after a season too fluctuating for what should have been Francesco Guidolin’s young heir, we now find him in Qatar to get us passionate about the exploits of the most improbable national teams – even the bookmakers would say – of the World Cup.
Andrea Stramaccioni is the new voice of Rai, hired to enrich the work of the commentator on duty with his technical notes, often Dario Di Gennaro, the namesake of the former Verona player who won the championship now as a “support” also for matches of our national team, the great absent also in this edition of the World Cup.
Di Gennaro as a commentator comes from water polo and in this first Qatari phase he rose to prominence above all for the (South) Korean “nursery rhyme”: «Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim, Yun, Wan, Na, Son, Lin and Wan».
Textual, don’t go and see if the pronunciation corresponds to Seoul’s handwriting, the important thing is that there are eleven starters, including the Napoli defender, one of the Kims: they are the ones who drew without scoring against Uruguay .
“Strama”, on the other hand, is becoming the cult voice of football in and around the Middle East. He started favored by the football gods who tripped Argentina over Saudi Arabia.
However, he did his part, making even the strenuous defense of King Salman’s subjects drumming, who – not surprisingly – started the national holiday the next day. Understandable, it wasn’t easy to predict victory against Messi on his debut.
And even the Rai commentary, usually placid, with an overflowing Stramaccioni has become Italy-England, that of Fantozzi. Do you remember? «Shot, McKinley’s neck, Savoldi’s shin, Antognoni’s nose, English goalkeeper’s neck, McKinley’s nose, Benetti’s shin, neck, nose… Scary shot. Pole”.
On the other hand Stramaccioni, between the one-year adventure with Udinese and this World Cup, lived a career away from the Italian spotlight and in recent times right in those parts.
First in Greece with Panathinaikos, then in Prague with Sparta, then in Teheran with Esteghlal, right up to his last assignment in Doha with Al Gharafa.
And precisely because of his Iranian past – among other things marked by a stormy ending, complete with a passport withdrawn by the authorities for having argued with the club’s management -, Stramaccioni commented with great enthusiasm on Iran’s feat against Wales and now he has become the idol of social media for a “stolen” video at the end of the game, when questioned by a colleague he indicated that he had cried with emotion over the one-two in full recovery signed by Cheshmi and Rezaian.