ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 30

Self-portrait wearing Herbert Prohaska’s number 8 shirt.

During the 1966 football World Cup in England, Italy lost 1-0 to North Korea. The winning goal was scored by a dentist. One of the consequences of this defeat was that the Italian FA stopped allowing foreign football players to play for Italian league teams. This decision did not improve things and by 1980, the Serie A was a pretty insignificant league. In order to improve things, in 1980 they decided to allow one foreign player in each team. These players were often not the best players in the teams but they were exotic and were the stars. 

Eleven teams (out of the 16 in Serie A) bought foreign player: Juventus bought Liam Brady from Arsenal, Roma got Falcao from Brazil, Napoli got Ruud Krol from Holland. Inter got Herbert Prohaska from Austria Vienna, he was OK, not that great but he was our “straniero”. 

In 1981, a friend from school (a Roma fan who had some kind of connections)  was given Prohaska’s shirt after a Roma-Inter match. He gave the shirt to me as I was the only Inter fan he knew (people in Rome mainly supported Roma and Lazio although some would support Milan and Juve). I wore this shirt when we played football after school. For the 1982-83 season, Prohaska (ironically) was transferred to Roma. I don’t know for what reason, I unsuccessfully tried to peel off the number 8 on the back.

And here’s another interesting fact, out of this first batch of foreign players, the only great player was Falcao.*

*Falcao divenne l’ottavo Re di Roma: amato, coccolato e idolatrato. Ci fu però un curioso episodio di mercato che lo vide coinvolto: nella sessione estiva del 1983 Ivanoe Fraizzoli, predisente dell’Inter, riuscì a strappare il giocatore alla Roma. Si accordò con quello che possiamo definire il primo procuratore della storia: Cristoforo Colombo, avvocato brasiliano che assisteva il buon Falcao. Fraizzoli avvertì Dino Viola: “Ho preso Falcao” gli disse. Il presidente della Roma mosse le proprie pedine. Chiamò direttamente Giulio Andreotti e gli chiese una mano. Andreotti girò il problema al fido Franco Evangelisti che per prima cosa andò a parlare con la mamma del giocatore. La signora Azise si sentì dire che anche il Papa avrebbe tanto desiderato che la permanenza a Roma di suo figlio continuasse. Alla fine Andreotti chiamò Fraizzoli lasciandogli intendere che se avesse preso Falcao, avrebbe perso un’importante commessa di una sua azienda che riforniva i vari ministeri della politica italiana. Fraizzoli capì, chiamò Mazzola e ordinò: “Stracciate il contratto di Falcao, non lo prendiamo più”. 

#herbertprohaska

30.1.2020.

I AM STILL ALIVE

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