Football and AIDS, removal The painful case of Giuliani- Corriere.it

Sport is the human activity with the highest rate of repression of that which frightens. Football is the sport that has perfected this mechanism best of all. Italian football, in this, practically unbeatable. And in fact, for almost all Giuliano Giuliani the Verona goalkeeper who on 20 October 1985 suffered one of the most incredible goals ever scored by Diego Maradona: a sudden left winger, from 35 meters, who slammed into the post and entered. Verona with the Scudetto on his chest, in which Giuliani took the place of Claudio Garella, who is in the front door, since he recently moved to Napoli where he will win another historic victory: the first Scudetto, that of 1987.

Curiously, Giuliani will again take his place, starting from 1988-89. With Garella they are as similar as Schubert to Iggy Pop, but this time the result will be the same: the scudetto in 1990, the second in the history of Napoli and the legend of Maradona. Yet, when (a long time later) Giuliani’s ex-wife Raffaella asks Diego for help in organizing a match in memory of Giuliano (who died in 1996, at the age of 38), the Pibe does not even answer, despite of the generosity shown many times towards all the companions of those unforgettable years. And that silence not due to the fact that Giuliani was (and will remain forever) the only Italian goalkeeper to have saved him two career penalties, as a goalkeeper for Verona. above all, a silence that practically all of those comrades have in common, except Alessandro Renica, Ciro Ferrara, Luca Fusi, Giancarlo Corradini and a few others. Because it was AIDS that killed Giuliano Giuliani. That even today, in an environment like that of football, a disease that is difficult even to name.Imagine then, when people died much more and the association with homosexuality (which for Italian football is notoriously the absolute tab) was almost iron.

It was of no use knowing that Giuliano Giuliani was not gay. And that in all probability he had contracted the virus in early November 1989, for an adventure (the only one in his life as a faithful husband) in Buenos Aires on the occasion of Maradona’s bachelor party. Least of all, it was enough to know something else that was already well known at the time: that the HIV virus is transmitted only in blood or through sexual intercourse. So, not with mere closeness (and not even with a kiss). But that was enough to plunge Giuliani into a black hole of loneliness and oblivion. Both the man and the doorman, if you really can’t help but use this horrible phrase. Because, yes, Giuliani was also a great goalkeeper, who before his disappearance had been an inspiration to many. Among them was a child from Treviso, who in November (obviously a month of destiny) of 1986 was in third grade, cheered for Verona, was like him a goalkeeper and wrote a letter to Giuliani: I am an admirer of yours, like the way you play. I am thrilled with your fabulous parades, I have your photos and I know your career, I would love to hear from when you were a child.

Ten years later, when he was in high school, the little author of the letter was informed by a classmate of Giuliani’s death.And now, from November 4, that child named Paolo Tomaselli, who writes about football for this newspaper, will go out in the bookstore with Giuliano Giuliani, more alone than a goalkeeper, published by 66thand2nd. The news about the life of his childhood idol if you had to look for him. And it cost him considerable effort, given that even today about Giuliano Giuliani and his life so different from that of the typical footballer (and not only for how it ended) hardly anyone wants to talk.

It was worth it, for the author of that letter also reproduced in the photo at the beginning of the book, because those who agreed to speak (his ex-wife, daughter Gessica, the few friends who were close to him until the end) helped Paolo Tomaselli to compose a story that is beautiful, shameful and sad at the same time. An adjective, the latter, which appears towards the end, in a quote from the film The extra man, by Paolo Sorrentino. He would be a perfect director for a film version of this book.