On Saturday afternoon the new, interesting book by Gianni Galleri by title “Balkan Football Club”, published a few weeks ago. The meeting was moderated by Giovanni Marziniwhich in the presentation of the contents of the volume immediately highlighted the romantic gaze of the Tuscan author on football and on the fans of Eastern Europe and in particular of the Balkan area.
As Galleri himself recounted, “Balkan Football Club” recounts the memorable episodes of about ten trips he made between Romaniathe Bulgariathe former Yugoslavia as well as theAlbania on the trail of the events and episodes that have made the sporting and political history of these lands. The author does not at all associate football with a simple pastime. For him, in fact, the stadiums and structures of contemporary football can act as true sacred times, in which the people who frequent them are guided by a sort of footballing faith and deep passions.
The story contained in this enveloping work takes us from the Marakana of Belgrade to the concrete utopias of the Yugoslav statues and monuments, from Maksimir of Zagreb on the shores of Lake Ohrid, immersing himself among the common people, their daily lives, their passion for football and stopping to have a beer on the steps of numerous stadiums around the Balkans.
As Giovanni Marzini observed during his speech, reading this book is particularly fascinating and useful in a historical moment in which we are often used to watching football on television or through new digital channels. Furthermore, as underlined by Marzini himself during the presentation on Saturday, for us Triestians, who in the past have often associated the former Yugoslavia mainly with some of the most atrocious conflicts in contemporary European history, the book manages to offer us a very different look at these lands that are so close to us, but at the same time also very far away. A type of gaze that reminds us that football can unite people from different places and citizenships, with different experiences and cultural backgrounds, but who are united by a great passion for this sport and for the emotions it can express to us.
