Being a Sicilian, Toto Schillaci spent the bulk of his career in Italy having to deal with slurs directed at him, mainly by opposition supporters, accusing him of having mafia connections simply because he came from the island.
The opening line in his autobiography, as Simon Hart recalled in his book ‘World in Motion: The Inside Story of Italia ‘90′, were “You’ve killed Falcone”. “They are the words of Giovanni Trapattoni, his then coach at Juventus. The Falcone in question was Judge Giovanni Falcone, the prominent anti-mafia investigator murdered by a bomb on the highway from Palermo airport [in 1992].”
Schillaci reassured Trapattoni that, no, even though he was from Palermo, he hadn’t murdered Falcone. “Mister, I was with Baggio, you can ask him,” he said, “I’ve not killed anyone today.”
Fast forward to last week and the arrest of mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro at a Palermo hospital, after he’d been on the run for just the 30 years.
Markets in Vienna or Christmas at The Shelbourne? 10 holiday escapes over the festive season
Ciara Mageean: ‘I just felt numb. It wasn’t even sadness, it was just emptiness’
Stealth sackings: why do employers fire staff for minor misdemeanours?
Carl and Gerty Cori: a Nobel Prizewinning husband and wife team
“I was at the hospital when I saw hooded policemen arrive,” said a witness. “I was smoking a cigarette outside. The police stopped us, telling us to remain where we were. It looked like a madhouse, a scene from a Wild West movie.”
The witness? Toto Schillaci. No kidding. Hopefully Trapp didn’t ring him and after and say “hmmmmmmm”.
QUOTE
“If Lukaku cost €100 million – and he can’t control a ball – then those who have technique must be worth more.”
Former Juventus director Luciano Moggi bigging up Napoli’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia by being exceptionally rude about Romelu.
Comoros FA president uses wedding speech for bizarre revelation
The Comoros football association might not have appreciated the nature of their president’s recent comments to a gathering of friends and colleagues, as reported by The Guardian last week, but look it, Said Ali Athouman at least deserves to be saluted for his honesty.
The gist: during the last Africa Cup of Nations, hosts Cameroon were accused of falsifying the Covid tests of some opposition players so that they would show up as positive and they’d end up missing games.
Cameroon president Samuel Eto’o strongly denied the allegation, and when he attended the above mentioned gathering, his good pal Athouman decided to use his speech to publicly support him.
How did he do this? Well ... : “We also cheated against Ghana! So it’s time to stop this useless polemic about my friend Eto’o,” he said. No, he did. “Let’s stop whining and move on. Against Ghana, I say it and repeat it, we had positive cases of Covid but we still managed to get those players to play.”
Perhaps the quirkiest aspect of this startling revelation, which no doubt left Athouman’s Comoros FA colleagues inserting their faces in their hands, was that it came in his wedding speech. Yes, instead of telling the audience how much he adored his new bride and such like, he opted to shake African football to its foundations. Quirky, indeed.
NUMBER: 203
That’s how many minutes of Premier League football Evan Ferguson has played this season – and he’s got three goals and two assists. Should we stay calm? Yes. Will we? Hell no.
WORD OF MOUTH
“What has he won? He has lost everything!”
Former Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari responding somewhat unenthusiastically to rumours that Luis Enrique is in the running for the job. (Enrique, it should be pointed out, hasn’t actually lost everything – he won two league titles and Champions League with Barcelona).
“Jermain Defoe ditched girlfriend Donna and their dog Defoe for his now estranged wife who is also called Donna.”
A mind-bending headline from The Sun that we felt needed to be shared.
“We are a happy flowers team. We are far away from the team that we were. There is nothing from the stomach, the guts. No passion, fire, desire to win from minute one.”
How grumpy was Pep Guardiola last week? Very.
To be or not to be sacked
There was no shame at all in Salernitana losing 2-0 at home to Napoli on Saturday, their visitors, after all, are the runaway leaders in Serie A. So, you’d like to think that Salernitana gaffer Davide Nicola won’t be sacked after the result – because it’s only been a week since he suffered that very fate.
Club owner Danilo Iervolino gave Nicola his marching orders after Salernitana suffered an 8–2 trashing by Atalanta, and then turned his attention to finding his successor. Forty-eight hours he made his decision: his new manager would be, eh, Nicola.
The un-sacking happened after a phone chat between the two men, during which Nicola pleaded with Iervolino to reconsider his decision, using no little charm.
“I asked the President with all my strength to review his decision knowing that he is touching the strings of a human soul that has deep sensitivity. It is he who strongly believes that when men pull in the same direction they are capable of extraordinary things. I thank the President, I want to repay his trust with all my love.”
Iervolino’s take on the U-turn? “Intelligent people are capable of changing their mind. That takes courage in stuffy Italy where no one changes the way things are done. And you only realise how much you love someone when they leave.”
How can you not love Italian football folk?
