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Mourning in journalism, the lesson of Sconcerti

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Mourning in journalism, the lesson of Sconcerti

Mario Sconcerti, the freest man I’ve ever known, is gone. I’m not able to make a precise portrait of him, the right one for days like this, for a man like this, different from everyone else. It is as if the memories chase each other in bulk, as if they were the colored sticks of Shanghai. Complicated to move one without ending up on another. The first one I grab is colored red in my head. He sat on the sofa at home, scrutinizing me with a paternal eye, the arrogant and full smile that only Florentines have. There is a karaoke keyboard and a wall of books in the room. He says: “Andrea, there are two types of directors. There are those who see the crowd going to one side and so they run at the head of the group shouting: let’s go! And then people like me, who when they meet the crowd, get in line and yell: where the fuck are you going!, on the other side!!!”. Well, Mario Sconcerti was on the other side.
The first time I saw him he was already a long time. He wasn’t just the boss. For me he was God, for all the colleagues of Corriere dello Sport “Il Faraone”. Who do you want to be? I want to be Mariosconcerti, all attached.
In any case. Rome, winter of 1997, Piazza Indipendenza. Maybe eleven in the morning. Still such an hour. The elevator opens. Mario throws the loden on a coat hanger, enters his office and in a stentorian voice announces: “The shop is open”. And behind those four words there is a world. The of him. The workshop is the effort of the craftsman, who puts his hands in the clay every day and works it. But the workshop for him was the Renaissance. The true one. His Florence. Nothing was worth more than Florence. He had more dignity than Florence. Because that’s where creation becomes a work of art. “You Bolognese have a very high average quality, perhaps even more than the Tuscans. But as far as peaks are concerned, nobody beats us: by chance was Leonardo born in your area?”.
He had hired me on the phone, that morning was the first time I had seen him in person. I thought he was taller, in my mind he was a giant. He is even now. Quick, ingenious, politically incorrect, very generous, irascible and above all crazy, completely crazy, spectacularly crazy.
One morning he calls me, midsummer. “Tomorrow you should leave and stay away for a month”. “Are you firing me, Director?” “No, I’m sending you to Argentina and Brazil”. “To do what?”. “Whatever you want: just send a page of stories every day. Emotions, stories, facts, characters. Once Romario, once Carlos Bianchi and then do what seems most beautiful to you”. Click. It was a roller coaster shot in that rare and borderline land where intelligence and feeling meet. Mariosconcerti was its guardian.
Christmas Eve. “Milan bought a certain Shevcenko, go to Kiev to explain his world“. February. “There is the African Cup in Burkina Faso, the paradise of stories, have a good trip”. In sport there is everything. No one was able to explain it like him. Failure, rebirth, mistake, fear, unattainable happiness, indelible pain, challenges to the limits of the human. “If you talk about sport, you talk about life”. It was like talking to Homer, to Salgari, to his Dante Alighieri. Curious about everything. Explosive. Partisan. Always deployed. Disgusted by the routine. “Totti speaks at the press conference? Ten lines. Who cares about the press conference? Explain to me why Totti sees football before the others, what’s the difference between him. We are the 24 hour sun of sport. The Cassation. Football is a billionaire company. It should be treated with respect.”
Another wand from Shanghai. This is purple. Actually Purple. Restaurant near Porta Pia, evening, Mario is no longer the director of Corriere dello Sport, he is the general manager of the most absurd and unstable Fiorentina of all time, that of Vittorio Cecchi Gori. We became friends, we eat pizza with the wives, everything went well until 11 when a colleague arrives who, thinking he’s being funny, says: “Has your Cecchi Gori finished stealing?”. Mario explodes. “If you say that Cecchi Gori steals, I say that your wife is a pig”. She is beside herself. A ten minute blast without taking a breath. The waiter goes to our table neighbors: “Do you want me to move you?”. And they: “Absolutely not, when will a show like this happen again?”. Mario throws the credit card and walks out indignant. The owner of the club chases him to give it back to him and asks him: “Director, but Fascetti is kicking Bari out?”. Unspeakable answer.
Never seen anyone with more energy and passion. Hard and very tender. Totally bewitched by his daughter, Martina, and by his wife, Rosalba, the true architrave of his existence. Sweet, patient, brilliant, in love. Mum what a beautiful family, the Sconcerti.
Shanghai blue. He was my best man. You, Rosalba, in the front row. Beautiful. I don’t think I ever told him how proud I was that he, Mariosconcerti, was there by our side. How gratifying it was that she was there too.
Yellow Shanghai. Mario, son of Adriano, king of boxing attorneys, was a scholar. He wrote books (“History of football ideas” is perhaps the most beautiful ever thought about the strange inverse of the ball), above all he read them. He graduated late. He didn’t like the idea of ​​being called a doctor without actually being one. He loved history. He knew her. He used it. From Repubblica to the 19th century he invented journalists, ways of doing journalism, led and opened newsrooms, and made Gianni Brera (who died just 30 years ago) say: “you are my best plotter”. He suffered a lot, he was exiled, he started from scratch and returned to the top of the mountain. He gave a show on TV, on the radio and in Corriere della Sera. When you use words a lot, someone escapes you. It happened to him. He has been the subject of unjustified assaults. It happens when you expose yourself a lot. And Mario was always chest out. A champion. Restless, tirelessly in search of the Holy Grail. Nothing weighed as much for me as his comments. Direct, courageous, profound. Inevitably, convincingly, wonderfully on the other side. Thank you Mario, it was an honor. Say hello to Dante and Leonardo. Don’t forget about us.

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