The new book by the journalist after Hearts rossoblù focuses on the most intimate aspects of the team that has entered the myth of Italian football
It is not the sequel, nor the second episode of Cuori Rossoblù, the book with which Luca Telese described Cagliari on the roof of Italy in 1970. “Champion hearts – The passion of Gigi Riva, the giants of Sardinia and the incredible year of the Scudetto “(Solferino Editore, 530 pages, 18 euros) is the completion of the volume with which the journalist from Cagliari – by birth and faith and sporting passion – further defined the rossoblù myth, from the contours to the most intimate heart, that of the title.
With an almost televised slant, through which Telese is the master, with a series of chapters that are never banal and ringed into each other through the characters and stories, Samples Hearts travels lightly between epic and history, sex (tasty memories of Tomasini) , and when you turn the last page you have not read a story of fifty years ago but a story of today, still alive. The author speaks through the words of those who were there, pulling the strings of memories unearthed by Sandro Ciotti and Renzo Arbore, Enzo Tortora and Walter Chiari. Raimondo Vianello.
Stories of Cagliari and Cagliari, stories of Italy with Fluorsid, the petrochemical from Rovelli and the current president Giulini, the rookie Copparoni that the stadium keeper did not want to let in training, the after-championship of the heroes with the philosopher Manlio Scopigno who buys a house in Gallura, in a Porto Rafael that was not very fashionable at the time. There are Tiddia and Ranieri, there is room for Nainggolan and Enrico Berlinguer because Cagliari was not just a football team. It was and is a phenomenon.
With the white lady of Gigi Riva, the pink ballets and the ambushes of the paparazzi, the most difficult moments and the climbs. Hearts champions is the tomorrow of a Cagliari that is always today, through the words of Gigi Riva’s son, Nicola, and that of Nené: Ruben. There is no shortage of anecdotes and archival pearls, football is not lacking but above all there is no lack of love for a myth. A straight-backed myth, though. And always against the wind », the ending that, in this case, can be revealed. (mac)