We will try again next year and try to be better. And if it’s not next year, we’ll try again, and then again. This is sport: the continuous commitment to becoming the strongest. Whoever wins celebrates, everyone else learns something. But finishing behind the winner is not a failure: it’s an honor. Failure is when you put into play men and means that are decidedly superior to your opponents and you didn’t succeed. This is not the case with Padova: the sports facilities available and the corporate capital invested in the project were notoriously lower than at least two other clubs. Failure is when you haven’t given your all to achieve your goal. But if you worked all season to stay at the top, if you fought to the limit, if you worked hard to improve and if you always put your heart into it, you didn’t lose: you grew.
On Saturday evening the Euganeo was beautiful: hundreds of fans wearing the white shield shirt taken out of the closets, caps, scarves, sweatshirts. Smiles, songs, applause. We knew it would be very hard: yet the city responded with love for him.
Despite a terrible stadium, which makes entering it feel like visiting prison rather than going to the theatre, the people from Padua were there: the usual ones, the youngest, and also many women.
Nobody likes to lose, I think this is clear to everyone, even to those who today throw accusations everywhere: against the owners, the management, the coach and the players. You can be sure that all of them wanted to win and they always declared it, they always tried. When you set yourself a great goal you are also forced to make courageous choices on the run: football, however, is not an exact science, if your shot hits the post and your opponents get a lucky rebound, your destiny changes.
You cannot judge a process towards the goal by episodes. If anything, the episodes lead you to make choices you didn’t think you had to make. And in the end there is only one official winner, and it is not always the one who performed better than the others.
I don’t like the curve’s reproaches to the team at the end of the match, but I understand that it is now part of a widespread football ritual. However, the captain’s tears moved me. An adult man, who has experienced many battles in football, someone who has only been linked to this city for three years: here, seeing Donnarumma cry real tears because he believed in this season every day, makes you understand how much life there was in that locker room. Boys who chased an ideal, a dream, a life project. No, they didn’t fail. It will pass, and they will come back stronger inside: if only because they fought for something in a world where it is easier not to even try. —
