Tonella and football without merits “I missed a real chance”

From promotion with Treviso to the “guide” of many goalkeepers

the character

Tito Tonella reminds us of a football that is disappearing, assuming that today we can still find traces of it. That football where the instructors patiently taught the fundamentals to the kids, repeating them over and over if necessary. And they made them debut only after they saw them really ready: in the case of Tonella we are talking about those madmen who wanted to become goalkeepers. A football where terms like friendship, loyalty, solidarity, honesty still had a meaning. Tito, a native of Treviso, is now for the 60s, has played in a myriad of teams: from Spinea to Ardita Pero, as a goalkeeper coach he was in the Treviso Primavera, in Quinto, again in the Treviso of the tormented after Corvezzo, all ‘Arcella of Padua. Let’s start with his arrival at Treviso from Bassano in ’94, with Maino, Bernardi, Margiotta, Bressan and Novello, a batch of former Giallorossi wanted by the ds Renato Favero to form, together with Bonavina, Fiorio, Pradella, Lombardi, Boscolo, that magical Treviso. of the three promotions in a row, from Interregionale to Serie B. “In Serie D – Tonella says – when after losing 1-0 at Tenni in the return we went to win 2-1 at Rocco in Trieste in front of 20 thousand fans: almost me I was wearing it out of fear. And there was the overtaking, then in the last at home with Miranese we just needed a point, 0-0 and here is the promotion. And to think that at Christmas we were 5 points behind, the third reached 12 points ».

It was an enthusiastic Treviso, other than today.

«I don’t know the situation of the Treviso Academy so well to express judgments, however my heart remains biancoceleste and I hope that Treviso will move up in the category as soon as possible. I honestly don’t understand the lack of interest that has been in football for years here: I remember extraordinary characters such as the Caberlotto family, Renzo Barcè, Giangiuseppe Lucchese, Renato Favero. I also met Tiziano Nardin. But I also remember the inexplicable ostracism for Lino Diquigiovanni, the entrepreneur from Vicenza who said he was willing with his daughter and son-in-law to transfer his Real Vicenza to Treviso. Then I would like to say something ».

Please.

«I too have experienced that meritocracy no longer exists in football. For 10 years I coached goalkeepers who then made a career, one for all Danilo Tunno, who one day told me: “I haven’t even found a coach like you among the professionals.” In short, something good seems to me to have done it too, but never that some company of a certain level had called me. And it makes me angry. This is my great regret, not having been able to prove what I am at a higher level ».

Some satisfaction, in addition to the adventure in that magnificent Treviso, there must have been.

«You won’t believe it but, I was 47 years old, I was called the Ardita Pero, Second category, who had both goalkeepers injured. Of course I thought about it for a while and in the end I accepted without expecting a cent, I trained a bit and played the last five games between the posts. I confess that at first I was as excited as a kid. But in the end we went to the playoffs ».

And today?

“I have with my wife and daughter the bar at the Medicine Center on West Street. And I play tennis. I don’t go to the stadium anymore but I miss football, I miss the smell of the grass, the work on the field: I never stopped being updated on the preparation of the goalkeepers and if an adequate proposal arrived, but yes, maybe I would go back to track”. –

Silvano Focarelli