“What do you want? The trophies?” At that question, the robbers looked at each other, eyes and mouths emerging from the balaclavas betraying a moment of disbelief. Perhaps, only in that moment did they understand that the one they had just hit with the butt of a gun, who was on the ground wounded and bleeding, was the living monument of Italian football.
From the villa of Roberto Baggio, attacked by five hooded bandits and an accomplice who remained outside to act as a lookout, money and precious objects disappeared. But now there is an answer to the question that all his fans have been asking themselves since yesterday: «Is the Golden Ball safe?». Yes, the trophy awarded by France Football to Divin Codino in 1993, when he wore the shirt of Juventus, It is safe. As reported by the Giornale di Vicenza, not because it was kept in a safe or in a safety deposit box, but only because the bandits fortunately ignored it. The Golden Ball was in the villa of Altavilla Vicentina, in a display case, within their reach, but they didn’t take it. They instead focused on his rifles, wasting time breaking the locks and chains that protected them, then abandoning them as they fled.
All signs, combined with that look full of amazement at the question posed to them by one of Baggio’s relatives, which make one think that the one in the villa was yes a planned coup but perhaps without knowing who the owner of the house wasgiven that it is well known both what Baggio achieved in his career and his passion for hunting.
The investigations Meanwhile, the carabinieri continue: the estate of Baggio – who reinvented himself as a direct farmer after his farewell to football and the distance he kept from the public scene – is so large that it is difficult to understand where the gang entered from. In any case, after having walked through the fields undisturbed, the robbers would perhaps have found an open door or window, as no signs of forced entry were found. Then the raid, the wounding of the champion and the plunder. Without, fortunately, touching the Ballon d’Or: perhaps because it was too difficult to resell or perhaps because they didn’t want to insult their most loved champion either.
