between Totti, Icardi and the Scudetto race – Corriere.it

When
Luciano Spalletti
the Roma coach celebrates bench number 500. Point to the four digits, he says with the knowledge of a man that he seems to know when, where and how to get there. In reality, he has many doubts, but the rule is: keep them, hide them and work on them. There are a thousand now, the benches. Lived, the last ones, beyond all expectations. The night before the exam Sassuolo tormented, like all the others. An eve with the lamp lit that sheds light on an increasingly difficult task: keeping up the pace of victories, letting Napoli experience the intensity of a season (15 points ahead of Inter) that promises to become the most important of its career.

Enthusiasm and humility

Spalletti won in Russia. But do you want to put a Scudetto in Italy, in addition to Naples, the city of Maradona that has been waiting for it for 33 years? A thousand benches to make history, and a point (or perhaps even more than one) of merit that he legitimately wants to pin on his chest. The key? The same enthusiasm he had in Empoli, the one that overwhelmed him in Udine. Who accompanied him to Rome and Milan. And then the virtue of age and awareness: humility conquered along the way. He has found the balance, he has moderated certain excesses. And he also judged himself for the (different) managements of Totti and Icardi. Among the most important recent matches of the 999 played, he includes Napoli’s Coppa Italia against Cremonese: the wrong match. Spalletti reaches the milestone of a thousand battles at 63 years old. And then? His after tomorrow’s game, the night – as we said – remains tormented. Although his album of memories reserves much more. Before and after Naples.

The most important matches

Totti’s last match (Roma-Genoa 3-2) was not only a historic moment for football, but rather an important piece in the mosaic of Luciano Spalletti (sooner or later we will meet), as the Lazio-Roma derby finished 0-2 (eleventh consecutive win for the Giallorossi team) or even the 3-1 victory in Naples. In a huge box full of things there are Fiorentina-Empoli finished 1-2 while the whole city was covered with posters with the inscription “Cousins ​​from the countryside” and Udinese’s equal with Milan, which earned the Friulians qualification for the Champions League. It’s still, Lazio-Inter 2-3: fourth place
. The Scudetto to Zenit: daring victories and unexpected goals. Lived intensely, without making them to become a private wealth. For that there are children (the last one is 11 years old), his wife Tamara, there is the family. There is the smell of the countryside, the faces of the animals on the farm in Tuscany. And the habit (which only habit is not) of the production of wine and oil.

The light of experience

The years follow one another in no particular order in his head: a thousand days on the bench, a thousand emotions, a thousand games without a single cliché. Why is Lucio like this: a factory of ideas, a volcano of intuitions. And a man in love with himself. At the age of 63 convinced but not arrived (football goes on and there is a need for knowledge). When he arrives in a new place, he takes the shape of the project, then forges it, builds it. He refines it along the way. The finished product, what it appears today, is praised in Italy and in Europe. become an example for many young coaches who go to visit him. But many benches – 76 in Naples to date – have also served to find the square, on and off the field of a beautiful reality that has become beautiful with him. Because a thousand benches are all experiences, one after the other. Spalletti turns on the light bulb on each one (experience is the tool that sheds light on the next game). Notes of a very long journey that hasn’t finished yet. To someone he whispers: Then I’ll stop. A lie.