Mattarella grand master of ceremonies today will award the winners But what a disappointment for Chieri

Grobelna and members sent home without playing: too many positive Fabris: “Too bad, but this is the time we are given to live”

the last act

Once again, the 41st in total, the twelfth in the final of a trophy, the match will be between Conegliano and Novara. The Italian Cup is now their ground, seven of the last eight editions are on their boards. The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella will also be there today to see the match and award the winning team with the trophy and the race will be all to be enjoyed from start to finish. For the Head of State it will be one of the last “exits” in this capacity, given that from January 24 the Parliament will have to elect his successor.

But it’s not just his presence that makes people understand that no, it’s not like other times. The Final Four in Rome became Final Three, after the exclusion, by Covid protocol, of the Chieri team which had four positive athletes in the control tests. And so the igorine arrived in the final from the office, without breaking a sweat, except for yesterday morning’s training, earning a day of rest on the panthers. “Too bad, Chieri deserved to play it on the pitch, but this is the time we are given to live.” Words of Lega President Mauro Fabris, who spoke in the official statement of the objective impossibility of postponing the entire competition, while the A2 final between Brescia and S. Giovanni in Marignano, with Covid cases in the latter team, has been postponed thanks to the greater flexibility of the calendar of the second series.

“We want to play” the girls from Conegliano said in a group video in the first weeks of the pandemic, when the championships were suspended. The appeal went unheard, the tournaments were canceled and an entire season behind closed doors ensued. “In times of a pandemic, the choice is simple: to play or not to play,” continues Fabris. Novara too would have preferred to win the final on the pitch. “The true values ​​of sport – explains the general manager Enrico Marchioni – are based on sporting competition, on the values ​​of the field and, unfortunately, not on protocols that have been reluctantly applied”.

Let’s play then, as Cuneo did at Palaverde with just nine players and without making a bad impression. Play at the best possible conditions, perhaps changing these protocols, as Fabris himself wished, to have two teams on the pitch facing each other in complete safety. And Conegliano and Novara give today the best possible show on national live, as they have done for years, to award this first trophy of 2022. The “master of ceremonies” is waiting for them …—