Gianni Brera, greatness of a myth

He invented terms still in use in sports language. And nicknames for dozens of footballers (sometimes popular, sometimes not). From the postwar period to his death, he was the greatest (and imitated) Italian sports journalist. Gianni Brera was born in 1919 in San Zenone Po and the great river, its woods, sandbanks and banks will often appear in his articles and books. At 13, his father (who works as a tailor and barber in the village) sends him to school in Milan. He plays football in youth teams, he would like to go to Milan but there is no trace of a past in the Rossoneri. The career, therefore, ends soon and Brera returns to Pavia where he graduates in political science in 1943. he begins to write, especially on the Guerin Sportivo. They call him in the war (near the Folgore) but on 8 September he joins the partisans of the Ossola Valley, taking the Sten (short-barreled machine gun) and the typewriter, Olivetti Lettera 22, to the mountains. director of the Gazzetta dello sport, he follows the companies of Magni, Bartali and Coppi. In 1954 he put on the front page the world record of 5000 of the Soviet Kuc and for this he was accused of pro-Communism. He resigns. He goes to the day, then again to the Gazzetta, the Giornale, and finally to Repubblica.

It is fixed with two things: the free (the defender without marking commitments, behind the full backs) and the bolt because, according to him, the Italians are not physically equal to other peoples, able to set the offensive game for 90 ‘. He finds support in Nereo Rocco, the Milan coach, who makes a reason for living out of the bolt. The two agree on everything, except Gianni Rivera. Brera calls him Abatino, accusing him of “little courage”. But he also coins Accaccone for Helenio Herrera, Penna Bianca for Roberto Bettega (the Juventus center forward already grizzled at a young age). Then Roar of Thunder for Gigi Riva, Bonimba for Roberto Boninsegna, Piscinin for Franco Baresi (younger than his brother Beppe), hang gliding for Inter goalkeeper Zenga, Giacinto Magno for Facchetti and Basletta for Giovanni Lodetti. He can’t stand Antognoni (Fiorentina) and Beccalossi (Inter), too technical and not very gladiators. He gets along well with Enzo Bearzot but the prediction on the 1982 World Cup is blatantly wrong. “If Italy wins, I’ll walk to the shrine of Mary,” he says. Said and done. Back from Madrid, barefoot and in penitent dress, he climbs the road to the Marian shrine. In the editorial office he hates loneliness. Around him, friends and colleagues, even after work, in the restaurant, to break the dawn between trump matches and glasses of red. Do not miss his books: The body of the ragassa, The ballad of the boxer played. In the background the Po, the hard life along the river. On the centenary of his birth, Gianni Mura writes that Brera was a fan of Inter (for which he coined the term “Beloved”) but to avoid controversy he has always declared his sympathy for Genoa. In December 1992, on a bad foggy evening, a stone’s throw from San Zenone, he was with two friends when the car had a head-on collision. All three die. –