My two years lived as the Ted Lasso of the Zebras

For two years I was Ted Lasso, more or less knowingly. I don’t have Jason Sudeikis’s talent and I would never have been able to imagine a story like his but I know it well, at Zebre I knew very well the sensation of the alien in the temple, of the tourist among the faithful. I loved every minute of Ted Lasso, the series that gracefully affirmed some of the principles I’ve always believed in: kindness, listening, empathy. I loved every minute of rugby at Zebre, I tried to bring to the club and to the people I worked with my idea of ​​the world and to listen to theirs. We grew up together for two years. Like Ted Lasso I know the feeling of the last episode, the end of the series, the time to go home. I am a man of communication and I have been an entrepreneur, I don’t come from sport but I have worked a lot with sport. Like Ted Lasso I arrived at my team by chance, no project, no programming but the same intention of the owner: let’s put one at random, it can only go wrong. Lasso coached an American football team and he knew little or nothing about soccer. I was a publisher and I managed companies in the world of media, I knew exactly what I learned about playing rugby at the counter after the fourth grade. I knew how to manage companies and work groups, yes. Like Ted Lasso I refused to take the toy apart, unlike Ted I didn’t work on the sports project because everyone has to do their job and life is not a beautiful Apple TV series. I tried with all my strength to find finances, give serenity to the group, build consensus. That was my job, that job I loved. We have (almost) always lost and while for the Richmond di Lasso it was just a question of finding cohesion, for the Zebras the story is different, very. Rugby is a more elegant and better organized version of a fight on the bumper car track. It may happen that from time to time the shrewdest one wins but generally it is difficult. Everyone knew it from day one but it’s fun to watch them tear their clothes off and look for culprits and causes.

We lost because the others were stronger, period. I seem to have been too good, but what exactly does it mean to be good in a world of adults and professionals? Does anyone still believe the iron sergeants joke? I’ve tried to be a goldfish, as Ted says, to forget the ugliness and raise. I was lucky, like Ted I met wonderful people. I was less fortunate than Ted because his president repented and understood the power of Lasso’s kind and crooked gestures, I had to deal with a slightly different version of power, a more North Korean model, the one in which the generals are rewarded one day and shelled the next in the great square. The big question that those outside professional sport ask themselves is: does the clear division between good and evil really exist, the one that Ted Lasso tells about? Are we really all on our way to redemption? Are bad guys bad just because they don’t know they’re good? The answer is disappointing: no.

The world of Lasso is a beautiful human and sporting utopia, the world of the Zebras and of sport in the broadest sense is a great crossroads of needs and incentives, dominated by personal needs and ambitions, by the professionalism and impulses of some and by sudden displays of ingenuity by Kim Jong in office. Lasso’s world is made up of trust, freedom and blank proxies, mine was also a path of irrational impositions, unnecessary tensions, external conditioning. Richmond is happy in Richmond, the Zebras have been promised to everyone and they are feeling bad everywhere because as one good man said, they are ‘the team least loved by whoever owns them’. So it becomes impossible not to fall in love with them because how can you not love a losing team? She always cheats on you, on the one hand you try to help her win and on the other hand you protect her from insults. Yes, the insults.

Ted Lasso is persecuted by a lot of strangers who call him a wanker, a wanker. In the end, he almost becomes an affectation, a loving way of encouraging him. I took the wanker for two years, a little less affectionately. Insults on social media are part of the job, mine and Ted Lasso’s. It’s an instinct that many don’t control, it’s free. However, if those who are supposed to help you call you a wanker, things change. It’s that if you look at it from afar, Italian rugby is beautiful, the world of values. Up close it is a kind of Hundred Years War or perhaps just a monologue by Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo in which everyone hates everyone forever and always, so much so that someone has built a career out of it at the very happy moment and this senseless hatred it’s the only fuel to keep going. A bit the opposite of the world of Lasso. I’ve traveled, met managers, coaches, fans and players around the world, it’s been a huge privilege because I love stories and I’m curious about people. Be curious, not judgmental, is one of my favorite quotes from Ted Lasso just like Believe. The magic word of Ted Lasso, the sign hanging in the locker room, the mantra on which the team joined. A beautiful thing but it doesn’t work like this, there is no magic recipe. There are people, the sum of their wills. I too had Roy Kent, the curmudgeon with a heart of gold. My Roy wasn’t a player or even a coach, Zebra’s Kent was an executive with a tight jaw, fluent dialect and overflowing humanity. I also had my Rebecca only that she was not the owner of the team but the operational director, an explosion of humanity and wonderful messes. I too had my coach Beard, in my everyday life he was a loyal and always present team manager, a brotherly friend. I had my Jamie Tartt too and he was just such a player, a huge talent looking for his way, a guy who knows he can amaze the world but has yet to figure out how (Jacopo I know you can). I too had my Richmond, my fifty children and the group of coaches, trainers and office staff have been my daily mission.

Believe, I tried to make them believe in my own dream, in the possibility of winning against all odds, against everyone, against clichés. I say they’ll make it without me. I remember that on my first day at the club, two years and a few months ago, one of the many extras from politics and the tragicomic power of rugby advised me to keep the presidency door closed, to distance myself from the boys. My door has always been open, always. Ted Lasso says his job isn’t to win or lose but rather to make those kids better people on and off the court. I tried Ted, now it’s their turn.