Nothing is impossible: Comunardo Niccolai broadcast worldwide

The event was so sensational that it entered the history of Italian football. Comunardo Niccolai, stopper for Cagliari who had just won the scudetto, started with the Azzurri national team on his debut in the 1970 World Cup against Sweden. Niccolai owner? According to a version that gradually turned into legend, Manlio Scopigno, the Sardinians’ coach, sitting in an armchair in front of the television, exclaimed: “I would have expected anything from life, but not to see Niccolai on worldwide television”. According to another version, however, reported by the sports journalist Giampaolo Murgia, Scopigno’s amazement was more contained, he never uttered that famous phrase, but he limited himself to saying: “But is it possible?”. Be that as it may, the important thing about this affair is not Scopigno’s reaction, but the fact that Comunardo Niccolai, famous for his unorthodox interventions and his “imaginative” and perfect own goals, had been chosen to be part of the team starter for Valcareggi’s Italy team making their debut in the most important tournament. An authentic fatal moment in history, as the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig would have defined it, one of those moments that we rarely witness, something impossible that, due to a strange twist of fate, occurs and catches everyone unprepared.