Retreats of football teams, as they once were: trumps, jokes and telephone tokens. And Zigoni was shooting at the lampposts

Another Italy, another ball. The retirement ritual of the 60s-70s-80s-90s was made up of matches with local amateur teams, walks in the woods, endless games of briscola, telephone chips and even some jokes. Lots of jokes. Because smartphones didn’t exist then. But we had fun all the same, as the great Giovanni Lodetti, AC Milan’s midfielder in the 1960s, told Corriere just recently: In training camp it was hard, but boredom certainly didn’t exist…. Like the time Jos Altafini he disguises himself as a friar…