The day before yesterday Inter beat Udinese with a goal in the 95th minute. A goal in the ‘Cesarini zone’. An expression that has become so habitual that many no longer think about the fact that behind that name there is a man of flesh and blood, with his history, both human and sporting.
An extraordinary story, which the journalist Luca Pagliari will relive tomorrow (9pm) at the Teatro La Fenice in Senigallia with the show ‘Zona Cesarini. Football, life’. For those who don’t know, Pagliari is from Senigallia. Like Renato Cesarini. That’s right. The man from the mythical ‘area’ was from Senigallia.
Pagliari, one might say: everything adds up.
“There’s more. Cesarini was born on April 11, 1906. So the day of the show will be his birthday… For me it’s a great thing.”
But how did it all start?
“In 2003, on the Senigallia seafront, the then councilor for culture asked me: why don’t you take care of someone born in the city? The figure of Cesarini intrigued me, because until then he had been a concept, not a man. So I started to ‘explode’ in his life, discovering that it had been a novel. The peculiarity is that, when I talked about it, everyone told me that I had to turn to Omar Sivori”.
Why?
“Because they were like father and son. Sivori called him the father he had lost as a child. And he was the son that Cesarini had never had. The fact is that it was Cesarini who discovered Sivori. Cesarini’s parents emigrated to Argentina when he he was a newborn. There Renato became a great footballer and a great coach. For River Plate fans he is a myth. He was a precursor. He said that defenders must also know how to attack, and attackers must know how to defend. They called him ‘the master of masters’. He was almost a philosopher. And to think that as a child he was an acrobat on street corners to earn a living. One day a circus passed by, and the director told him: join us. He was hungry to know, to learn.” .
He said the show was born out of a regret. Which?
“In 2004 Sivori, with a niece, came to Senigallia, where he stayed for two weeks. We talked about everything except football. A friendship was born. He told me: you have to write about Renato, and I want you to come to Argentina. The regret is that he didn’t make it in time. Sivori died in the spring of 2005. His son told me that he hadn’t told anyone that he had just a few months to live.”
Raimondo Montesi