Don’t take the ball away from those suburban children – Corriere.it

Let’s put it this way: if tomorrow morning, waking up from restless dreams, I find myself transformed into the Italian Red Cross, I’d know what to do. I would give an answer to the question these people have been asking themselves for a year: why? And when I say these people I mean the ones around me, here, in the first south-western suburbs of Rome, at the collision of the Monteverde district against the Colli Portuensi district, on this June afternoon finally without rain, people I am unable to quantify but my son, who is very good at counting by eye, assures me of 3-400 people.

We are here to say hello to this place, headquarters of the Il Faro Association, given that the Italian Red Cross, which owns the land, evicted the Cccp 1987 who have been managing it since 2004. Yet, what the Cccp represent for this immense neighborhood, with its over 200 members for 15 futsal teams, from Piccoli Amici (5 years) to the first team (from 19 and up, in Serie C1), the perfect example of how the Red Cross should use its resources, because its a story of inclusion and education for life, of coexistence with fragility, of commitment to achieving competitive goals without sacrificing anything of the sporting spirit – which in football now almost no longer exists. The guarantors of this story are precisely the people who hang around me – parents of children and young people enrolled in the various teams, ex-boys who have become men also thanks to their militancy in these teams over the last eighteen years, sports managers, enthusiasts, representatives of the XII Town Hall.

In my small way, given that my aforementioned son played in the chicks’ team this last season, I too am a vouch for it. I can attest to the difference of this football school compared to the football schools I have fleetingly sent my older children to in the past — fleetingly because, both in Rome and in Prato, I have always noticed that technical teaching was accompanied by being smart, throwing yourself on the ground, deceiving the referee, circumventing the rules, secretly beating your opponent, so much so that I immediately diverted them to other more formative sports like water polo or basketball. Nor did I want to try again, after those experiences, especially since the boy, so quick at arithmetic and fencing (seriously, last year we had enrolled him in fencing and he was pretty good, but he didn’t like it), not very good at ball sports: but my wife insisted, the parents of her school mates insisted – it’s different, you’ll see, a completely different thing, ours too is a blowjob – and so, without reselling the expensive fencing equipment, because you never know, I let myself be persuaded to make this fourth attempt with the butt.

Nine months later here I am, together with these 3 or 400 people, I can’t believe what the Cccp must dislodge due to the diktat not of Trangugia & Divora Inc., but of the Red Cross. I’ve seen things, in these nine months, that I never thought I’d see: I saw the coach, Enrico Zanchini, take over that bunch of differently strong little players and make them into a real team; and I’ve seen this team lose 18-1, 12-1, 8-0, without the kids ever getting discouraged or protesting because a good half of the goals they conceded were illegal, as the rule says you can’t attack the first ball carrier if he has not yet started the game, but evidently, given that self-refereeing is foreseen in the chicks’ matches, the coaches of the other teams teach their champions not to respect it; I saw the formation of a Roma team called Real Zigan and I saw them play against a team of addicted kids, score them one, two, three goals in a row in the first three minutes and then slow down, so as not to humiliate them; I saw a tramp named Riad, who lived camped out in the vegetation around here, recognize and call the children by name one by one during training and shout tactical orders to them clinging to the fence, and when Zanchini yelled at them not to bother , I saw him line up his orders, contenting himself with being the assistant coach; I’ve even seen my son’s team win a game, 5-2, in a heart-pounding blaze that was taken as a boon for next season — but again, here’s the problem we all have here: next season for the CCCP may not be there at all.

The Red Cross received a favorable sentence and does not even want to listen to the mediation proposals elaborated by the XII Municipality so as not to see what is perceived as an institution in these districts disappear. She doesn’t even answer when asked why this obstinacy, this intransigence. Why do they persist in not recognize the value of this adventure? What are they going to do with this strip of land? A wall.

For the record, Cccp is a collective name, an acronym with two meanings: Calcio a Cinque Colli Portuensi and also Col Cavolo Che Perdiamo. A solution could be to lose one and move to another district, and in this case the damage would be all for the XII Municipality. And again for the record, should this ever happen, like all these people next year I too will follow them everywhere else will find asylum, even if it takes an hour to get there and an hour to get back – and if instead they don’t find any new headquarters, if their glorious story will end here, and with it also my son’s football experience (because Col Cavolo I’m taking him to another football school), at home we have established that there is no going back and therefore – be careful – I am selling complete fencing equipment for a child aged 8-10, almost new and including a comfortable waterproof bag from transport. Bring it on, a deal.

The story

The Cccp football team was born in 1987 and in 1995 its animators founded a sports and cultural association open to all the boys of the Colli Portuensi district. Since 2004, the association has had a sports complex thanks to an agreement with Susanna Agnelli’s Il Faro Foundation. Here today stands one of the most important football schools in Lazio When the Susanna Agnelli Foundation withdrew, the Italian Red Cross, owner of the land where the center stands, returned in full possession of the La Cri structure and decided to evict the Il Faro association which also stood out for its collaboration with the national team for people with mental disorders Crazy for football A solution is being sought that does not damage an important experience, but has not been found so far