This summer there will be the Olympics in Paris. Among the symbolic places of this event there is certainly the stadium. A practical environment (since its etymology, from the ancient Greek “stàdion”, measuring approximately 170 metres), where we welcome people and make them feel at ease, the stadium can also be something else – for example, a place of poetry and enchantment, fascination and discovery? An environment that is familiar to many on a more or less weekly basis can also be “other”, generating, why not? of senses and sensations? Not just a place to sit and watch an external show, but a show itself? (After all, Albert Camus reminds us of this: «There is no other place in the world where man is happier than in a football stadium»). These and other questions arose while eagerly leafing through Vladimir Crescenzo’s splendid photographic book, “Around the World in 80 Stadiums. The most incredible football fields on the planet”, which Meltemi sends to the bookstore. The book shows very particular stadiums, in terms of construction, position, history, from all over the world, which also and above all become something more: a mirror of the surrounding places, of the people who frequent them (when there are places, because this is not always the case! ), of their peoples, of their cities.
But before delving into the discovery of these stages which are, yes, also poetic and surprising, a warm-up question: what poems come to mind linked to these places? (Also take it as a suggestion for a game to play with family or friends, or for a different school activity than usual…) So straight away, we would first of all say Umberto Saba’s famous series “Five poems for the game of football” , inspired by the beloved Triestina, especially the fourth which perfectly captures the atmosphere of sharing and isolation in the stands: «On the steps a small handful / warmed themselves. / And when / – immense ray – the sun extinguished / behind a house its glare, the field / cleared the premonition of the night. / […] / It was nice / to be so few frozen / united, like the last men on a mountain, / watching the last race from there.” And again, Vittorio Sereni, a great Inter fan, in “Another birthday” offers the portrait of an empty stadium, almost calcified by the summer heat: «At the end of July when / from under the pergolas of a bar in San Siro / between gates and In the arches you can glimpse / some segment of the sunny stadium / when the large empty basin astonishes / as a mirror of squandered time”. Mario Tobino reflects on the ephemeral beauty of things – what is more fleeting than the time of a game?: «The ever-changing crowd applauds / says that beauty flees / like the spark from a knife sharpener». Naturally, England, home of football, fields the great poet Tony Harrison, author of the scabrous poem V (which stands for “Versus”, “Against” football matches): «OK, forget about aspirations. Look, I know / that if United loses you fans will get angry / and that with the HARP you keep inside you will annihilate yourself.”
Let’s go back to the stands, sorry about the volume “Around the World in 80 Stadiums”. Divided by continents, the book shows modern, hyper-technological stadiums and very poor fields, in scenarios ranging from deserts to oceans, from glaciers to the highest peaks in the world, intertwining the beautiful color images with incredible stories, real mini-novels, like the redemption of Pakistani women who want to play football, the baobab that dominates in the middle of the pitch on the sadly famous island of Gorée, the epic match on the top of Kilimanjaro between Glacier FC and Volcano FC (which however ended 0- 0!) and many other emblematic events, each more interesting than the other. There are also stadiums in Ukraine and Palestine: the stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskiy, legend of Ukrainian football and of Dynamo Kiev, a multi-famous team, and the stadium in Nablus, which has always been very difficult to reach for Israeli checkpoints – and now impossible with the ongoing conflict.
Between seas and mountains
The review of stadiums is a feast for the eyes: there is the floating stadium in Singapore (rightly called The Float!), that of Trogir in Croatia nestled between two UNESCO sites, that of Bamburgh in England with the imposing manor in the background , while in Ireland in Dunlewey the backdrop of a snow-capped mountain is preferred, not to mention the Tromsø stadium in Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle and surrounded by the Northern Lights, with the related history of difficulties in participating in regular championships, for the great distances from other cities and the prohibitive climatic conditions.
Stadiums that have a privileged relationship with nature (an aspect that is rarely thought about): the Meshchersky in Moscow immersed in the forest, the Ottmar Hitzfeld Arena in Switzerland reachable only by cableway, at over 1,800 meters above the sea, the field near of Machu Picchu, in the Andes, the old Kantrida of Rijeka on the cliff, or the one in the Norwegian Lofoten islands, renamed “the most beautiful in the world” for its breathtaking position among the islets of the archipelago – there is an analogue in Italy, the Luigi Penzo of Venice, located on the island of Sant’Elena. And then the sand fields of Africa: the one a few meters from the Pyramids of Giza, the Ribeira Grande field in Cape Verde, the one in Morocco in the Ourika valley, in the middle of nowhere. And as we said, every stadium has a story to tell, and the most interesting are the most human and touching ones: the resounding 32-0 defeat at Pago Park to the detriment of American Samoa against Australia, or the reverse match between the two weakest national teams in the world, Bhutan-Montserrat, played on 30 June 2002 in conjunction with the “real” world final (for the record, Bhutan won 4-0).
Finally, it occurred to us that the Como stadium, the legendary Giuseppe Sinigaglia, dedicated to the Como rowing champion, near the lake – in Manzonian terms “That stadium on Lake Como” – would not be out of place in the review… We immediately nominate it for a new edition of the book.
