If life is made up of moments and turning points, and it’s all a moment as Anna Oxa sang assisted by the text by Umberto Smaila, Riccardo Gagno he undoubtedly knows how to be ready and what his team needs. The goalkeeper who made his debut in Serie B, with the Brescia shirt, on the same day as Tonali (August 2017), when both were little more than strangers, is continuing to archive material for stories with his grandchildren when the goal of a football field it will no longer be a comfort zone. Two years ago he didn’t just drag Modena to Serie Bhad also scored a goal directly from a clearance (from 80 metres), which split the balance of the duel in the lead with Reggiana.
Last year he demonstrated that Serie B could hold him even before and not just solely for that cameo seven years ago after which he was sold by Brescia to Grosseto (Serie D): within Modena’s quiet salvation there were also the his decisive saves. Until the coach was on the Via Emilia Attilio Tesser, for Gagno no problems and secure ownership. This year, that coach has become Paolo Bianco, the native of Montebelluna found himself in the (Far) West of a Modena that was too fluctuating. Already in the first round he had had to “taste” the bench four times, the injury at the end of January put him permanently on the sidelines also because once he recovered, Bianco decided to prefer Seculin over him due to a technical choice. Last Saturday, in Pierpaolo Bisoli’s debut in Ascoli on the yellow-blue bench, Riccardo was needed again. And luckily Riccardo is there because he is alone thanks to his penalty saved against Nestorovski, Modena has conquered a perhaps even decisive point in the fight for survival. «I went more by intuition than by study – said the goalkeeper – also because he had thrown the last ones to the other side».
The moment
With Seculin struggling with some physical problems, Bisoli had no doubts: «You play and I know you will do well, your recent past speaks for itself» the former Sudtirol coach told him, more or less. Gagno acknowledges: «They have been three difficult months. It’s not easy to find yourself on the sidelines when you’re used to always playing, but we know that ours is a particular role. I tell myself that I was good at not giving up and I always supported my teammates. We absolutely wanted not to lose this match, apart from the penalty we didn’t concede anything. We could have done something more in the finalization phase, but it means that we will improve from the next match.”
Often compared to Alessio Cragno, and not only because of the similarity of the surname or because they both grew up in Brescia under the protective wing of Giacomo Violini And Michele Arcari (newly promoted to Serie B as a trainer with Possanzini’s Mantova), Riccardo Gagno at 26 is ready to collect more material to tell about a tomorrow that now seems very distant. He, the man who knows how to be ready and seize the opportunities that life holds.
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