His words: “That evening I made many people cry, some from joy and some from defeatW
Bruce David Grobbelaar, still a target of the Roma people today. “Mort…your” among the hottest messages that can be read on the Instagram profile of the former soldier-goalkeeper who spoke to Il Giornale about the final of 1984 Champions League against Roma. These are his words:
What is your first memory of that evening? “The arrival in Rome. We were greeted by Roma fans with rocks and rocks coming through the windows of the bus. There wasn’t a better memory until the end of the match, when we won on penalties.”
How did he prepare the penalties? “My coach Joe Fagan, even though I was the goalkeeper, had selected me as the fifth penalty taker! When I headed towards the goal, however, he told me to try to distract the opponents in any way I could.”
He then performed his famous spaghetti dance on the goal line. “My legs felt like two limp spaghetti, the net of the goal reminded me of spaghetti and so I bit it. That ballet worked since both Conti and Graziani made mistakes. So I ran across the pitch to celebrate. In the midst of the delirium, Joe put Alan Kennedy in charge to beat the last one, the one that was assigned to me. Thank goodness, because if I had made a mistake…”.
Even today in Rome they hate it. “I made many people cry that night, some out of joy and some out of defeat. I can only say to all the Roma fans: if your goalkeeper had done to our team what I did to Roma, wouldn’t they be proud of him?”.
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