A football match, however exciting and epic in its own way, is still a football match. An excess of rhetorical momentum pushes us to attribute to sporting events the “definitive” value that they often do not have. Yet, once the spotlight has been turned off on the Europa League won by Atalanta last Wednesday in Dublin, one has the feeling that a light has remained on. The light of good news. Because behind the cup won by Gasperini and her boys, an entire community found itself and with her, in an empathetic contagion, half of Italy who rejoiced in admiration of Lookman’s hat-trick.
It’s the beauty of football (and sport) when it becomes an identity value, it carves out a space for escape and healthy belonging that is not simply the opium of the people. And the link that connects Bergamo to Atalanta, well summarized by the motto “mola mia”, has always been solid. Question of symbols. Nothing will be able to erase the images – which went around the world – of military trucks with the bodies of Covid victims, a distressing icon of the city at the epicenter of the pandemic. They are already in the history books. But these days the images of a Cup raised to the sky and of the celebration of a small provincial town that achieved a great feat are going around the world. Just a football match, of course. Yet, in this undertaking, there is something liberating and less ephemeral than usual. Which many, beyond the borders of Bergamo, have breathed and willingly shared.
