There is beauty in Allegri’s Juventus. Like the rediscovery of the Cesarini area

It seems that Juventus is back in fashion. And with her Mr. Allegri who, as an anchovy at the mercy of adverse currents, football and society, now finds himself the only one left in his place with the clear intention of keeping the rudder firmly in his hands. Despite the criticisms, it seems that when you win and go back to competing for victory, many right-thinkers of the good game also jump on the boat short music which, at least for the writer, is an art. Not only because, by not conceding a goal, badly it goes to bring home a draw, but because on an emotional level it’s a whole other story.

Brera said that the perfect match ends 0-0. Instead, I believe that perfection is the short muzzle. Especially if that goal comes in the final minutes. The Cesarini area would not exist without the short muzzle. It is the sublimation of perfection. And finally, I say it with absolute enjoyment, it’s back on everyone’s lips. And this is part of the black and white DNA since Renato Cesarini, as a player, won 5 championships with the Old Lady in the golden five-year period and as a coach, in addition to a championship, he also pocketed two consecutive Italian Cups, making during the season 1959-60 the first national double in the club’s history. This would be enough to be remembered. But the good Renato, as Alessandro Baricco happily wrote, did much more: “[…] when you give your name to a piece of Time – which belongs only to God, says the Bible – you have done something in your life”.

Cesarini changed the language of Italians forever. The expression, which indicates something that happens in extremishas a date of birth. On December 13, 1931, Italy-Hungary was played in Turin for the International Cup: the match was decided by Cesarini’s 3-2, who became the first blue player in football history to score in the 90th minute. The following week, on the occasion of the Ambrosiana goal against Roma at the end, the journalist Eugenio Danese wrote that that goal was a “Cesarini case”. The game was done: one minute and your surname is a signature on eternity.

Scoring on the finish is like uncorking a bottle of good wine. It is not only the gesture necessary to open it. We are talking about something very similar to a ritual, it is an exact and meticulous action, an art. They “pull out the corks” to release the joy of living. You enjoy those goals because all the emotions felt in the previous minutes condense in an instant, in a sort of mental, physical and vocal explosion. The Cesarini area is a crazed splinter in the natural order of things: it takes whoever scores from hell to heaven, whoever loses to an irreparable temporal fracture with the heart stopping abruptly together with the ball lying in the net.

Juventus players and fans have known these sensations well lately. They know how to fall and get back up. And when they do it by distilling drops of joy from the last few turns of the hands, it’s the most radical, unheard-of and special emotion there can be. Naples-Juventus it’s never a game like any other. Especially that of tonight, with the Neapolitans in full swing and the Bianconeri unexpectedly back in the running after a frankly unimaginable positive streak, from which, despite Roberto Saviano and his fears “that the great machine that pushes the teams of the North”, we are missing the 2 points with Salernitana for that canceled goal, ça va sans dire, right there at that moment.

By the way: given that superstition still counts for something near Vesuvius, Cesarini made his debut in the black and white shirt in Naples on 23 March 1930. Do you want him not to want to throw an eye on Maradona just tonight? Today is also my birthday. Winning with a short face in the Cesarini area would be a more than perfect gift.