Of Gaetano Cell On the pitch he was a model of education, one of the most serious players in the history of football. Agostino Di Bartolomei, the captain who spoke to the referee always keeping his hands behind his back (as Gianni Mura recalls), is unable to process the mourning for the European Cup lost on penalties against Liverpool: having reached the top of the sky, he had fallen from it . And ten years later, on the same day of the lost final, he commits suicide with a gunshot. On May 30, 1994 he voluntarily opened the door to eternity. The door to the world of shadows.
Says the son Luca, who only forgives him for that gesture after a long time: “It’s as if for those of his age making mistakes were less justifiable than for those who arrived later”. For Agostino’s son, interviewed by Courier, the father was like “the potential failure that questions everyone and in front of which we remain speechless and breathless”. Maybe there was something else that pushed Di Bartolomei to suicide. He doesn’t kill himself – and after ten years – for the never-gone ghosts of a final lost on penalties. But it is significant that Di Bartolomei on the very day of that anniversary he decides to take his own life.
He loses in eleven, but he must have felt the weight of failure, of the missed opportunity, more than the others. The most important of his career. Between the end of which and the day of the suicide there are too many “maybes” and just as many “whys” to be able to have certain answers on the final gesture of the Roma captain, on the abysses of anguish into which he can sink the human soul.
In short, the trauma of defeat has something to do with it but maybe not. Maybe Aug or Dibaas he was called, expected greater consideration, once he left, from that world of football to which he had given so much: and not only from a technical-tactical point of view – he was a thoughtful midfielder, he had a vision of the game and a formidable shot – but also from that of sports education, whose teaching he wanted to be brought to schools.
Instead, once his career was over, he found himself, if not alone, certainly isolated and even estranged from the football that had been his. He is described as a silent man, of few words but full of meaning (and also of common sense). To us he seemed – and still seems to look at the photos – like the boy from the first desk, all attentive and tidy, always clean and well-groomed, discipline as a way of life. It’s inexplicable how to a footballer like that strong – and rich talents – has been denied the joy of wearing the national team shirt, at least once.
