Who knows what football would be like if, as a utopia, the rankings were edited thoughtfully; if, in another way, the comforts and various hardships were also considered in the provisional and definitive calculation. Outside of the paradox, no one can know how Inter would react on the third day of training at Lagaccio, that is, whether Roma, or any other blue-blooded team, would agree to work on forcibly shared pitches, under Scottish showers or transporting materials technicians in the trunk of the car. At Genoa, unforeseen events are a daily occurrence, like drawing from a deck of forty crazy cards, but the inconveniences sharpen forms of adaptation that the youngsters assimilate right from the academy. Thus, it is like fighting against more than one opponent: it is accepting a natural numerical inferiority to the point of internalizing it. Unfortunately, however, the ability to excel at high levels risks declining because competition reduces the competitive disadvantage starting from the construction of new structures, plural.
The fairy tale of the Genoa youth sector, which has now reached a national dimension, is the fairy tale of all those kids who enter the football school, who leave from the campuses, from those children who are given the first rossoblù bag as if it were the beginning of a initiatory rite. And from the fairy tale we arrive at the fresco painted by Ruotolo’s Under 18 who went to the Scudetto final after having eliminated Milan in the championship, Lazio and Inter in the direct elimination phase with the beauty of twelve goals. We should set aside that Brerian “pedatory Shintoism”, which is cheering, to assume the right safe distance from events but it is impossible to free ourselves from the temptation to write that the 5-4 to the highly favored Nerazzurri (second time in four years that they have conceded five goals) it was the best match of the last thirty years of history of the Genoa academy, if not ever for those with greater historical depth.
The final gifted by Arata, with his first goal of the season which separates him from being compared to one of the fathers of Italian constitutionalism, is the subversion with partisan class of the fifth article “whoever has the wheat has won” of the San Zenone al Po football manifesto Tomorrow evening, Genoa will play for the scudetto with Roma (tomorrow at 8pm, live match on Pianetagenoa1893.net, live on Dazn and Vivo Azzurro TV), as in 2021. The triumph in Ancona ignites semi-divine ecstasy, new pinnacle of bravado and its Code. Someone could leave Genoa with two youth championships. Maybe one, maybe none. It matters little because the greatness of a man and a professional cannot be measured by lining up trophies, yet in this circumstance it seems that only trophies can suddenly change something that seems already written in black and white. Or white on black. The old siren’s song is enchanting, there’s no point in hiding it. The strong internal struggle cannot be resolved by anyone except listening to one’s heart.
