Villa San Martino. The home of the Berlusconi family, the place where the history of Italian football and politics has been written in the last 30 years. Manuele Baiocchini and Peppe Di Stefano entered it last February 17, for the last interview granted by Silvio Berlusconi to Sky Sport
BERLUSCONI’S FUNERAL LIVE STREAMING
I had only ever heard about it on the news. Arcore, Villa San Martino, a splendid farmhouse immersed in the greenery of Brianza about twenty kilometers from the center of Milan, the residence of President Silvio Berlusconi. A place where they have passed State leaders and personalities of high international standing. A place where she has been written part of Italian political historyas well as more than thirty years of football at very high levels. And that’s exactly what we were there for. To collect moods, emotions and sensations of a man who after being for a life president of Milanfor the first time as president of Monza he faced and hosted his Milan and his past in his new stadium.
February 16th at 4.00 pm: the entrance to Arcore
The appointment is fixed at four in the afternoon, we arrive well in advance and wait to be received. We go through the door of Villa San Martino. Going into Berlusconi’s house has a certain effect. And although almost two months had passed since the end of Christmas, the front door and the entire hall are still decorated with thousands of Christmas lights. “The President likes to keep them long after the end of the holidays, but in the next few days we will have to take them off, we are almost in spring”. We are told by the caretaker. We take a seat in a waiting room and from the French windows we can see the squirrels hopping up and down the garden. Indeed, a real park with an English lawn and colorful flowers everywhere, especially roses, within the walls of this enchanting residence.
The choice of the place of the interview
Half an hour passes and the press office manager asks us to choose the best angle to carry out the interview, indicating various options: the reception halla long table with 36 seats, one wall where it is hung one of Berlusconi’s favorite paintings and finally the living room, where are all the family photos. We choose that. Because the lights are warm, the atmosphere is relaxed. There are plush couches, there’s the liquor cart, there’s the poodles whites so loved by the President. Probably Dragon and Wolf, the latest arrivals. If it wasn’t there a Champions Cup placed on a table to make us understand where we are, we could easily think of being welcome guests at tea time, in a beautiful but apparently simple house. A house that smacks of family. We are brought coffee and a glass of water. The interview set is ready.
The wait
We wait and wait and wait. We are told that the President is in the next room studying. 31 years of presidency of Milan are not easy for anyone to remember, even more so for an 86-year-old gentleman. The President, who has been on the phone for two hours with his lifelong friend Adriano Galliani, retraces the stages of his Milan so as not to forget anything about his Rossoneri history. We hear his voice from the other side of the wall in the distance. Two hours and ten minutes after our arrival, Berlusconi is ready to release the interview. He enters the living room with the press office and his partner Marta Fascina. She greets everyone by shaking hands with a beautiful smile. Dressed in dark blue and with various note sheets in the hands but during the interview will never look. He realizes that the Serie B cup won by Monza in the previous season is next to the Champions Cup won by Milan and he kindly asks us not to let it enter the frame, he feels he has to release an interview mainly in red and black colors.
The interview
“Milan is my favorite team, I used to go to the games with my dad, I’ve always had him inside“. The chat begins like this. With a Silvio Berlusconi who tells his story with an open heart and tell. All. Of himself and of Milan. 42 minutes of interview will follow, in which the President amazes and demonstrates incredible clarity. Remember everything. Anecdotes of the players, even the less famous ones, the palmares of his management without forgetting even a trophy, the dinners, the trips, the phone calls with Galliani and his captain Franco Baresi. Then more. Tell i his dreams as an entrepreneur and proud he remarks that he has made them all even when “they seemed impossible to everyone”. Talk, get excited and have fun. A show. The interview ends and it becomes clear that he would like to tell so much more. And indeed he stops to talk to us, with the cameras off, for another good half hour. We snap a photo, happy with the lovely afternoon spent at Villa San Martino, but above all satisfied with having brought home some good content for Sky Sport: the latest television interview with the most successful President in football history.
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Berlusconi’s latest interview with Sky Sport
