Gianfelice Facchetti talks about our captains

Begins with Gigi Riva the series of portraits that Gianfelice Facchetti, actor, playwright, director and son of a captain, Giacinto, flag of Inter and the national team, dedication to Captains, this is the title of the book published by Piemme, myths, examples and flags of football. Maybe we couldn't start with others even if Riva never wore that band. Moving forward, we find well-known and lesser-known stories of great champions, but above all of players who made their careers in football unique because a captain “is not better than the others, he is simply different”. Nobody is like Roberto Baggio, there is only one Franco Baresi, an unforgettable Gaetano Scirea.

At the next European championships only the captains will be able to speak to the referees.
«This simple and essential thing is to re-establish a rule that has always been such and which only the bad habits of the last twenty years have polluted. Football fans know that the only MP who spoke to the referee was the captain. When the captain approached the race director, you can see in the photos from the 1960s, he put his arms behind his back, as if to say “I come in peace”. Over time, the encirclement of those who direct the race has become systematic. This decision is interesting from the perspective of fair play and to restore value to the figure of the captain.”

Who is the captain?
«The captain has always been the example on the pitch, the point of reference for the team and for the opponents. In the various examples of captains that I have chosen to tell, there are many ways of being one. There are captains chosen for technical leadership, captains loved by the fans. Those who became immortal and were able to unite different football faiths are those who had a sense of proportion, who never raised their voices, who never made out-of-place gestures, who had correct behavior on the pitch which often went hand in hand with life off the pitch.”

Captains have not always spent their whole lives on the same team.
«Some were able to play that role in a shorter time. I asked myself how you enter the heart of the fan, how you become the captain and sometimes it happens in a precise moment, the one in which you say the right thing to the fans, interpreting a feeling of many. For Gianluca Signorini it was like this at Genoa on a day at the end of the championship which led to salvation.”

Accomplished people the captains.
«It's hard to find an out-of-place gesture, an inconsiderate gesture, an unexpected reaction. Instead there are feelings such as Scirea's modesty which hides while returning at dawn from a victory party when she passes the workers going to work. It's not that there aren't people like that today, but it's very difficult to talk about them because for us footballers are unapproachable. There is no such thing as a footballer who goes to dinner with the fans. My father had them by contract. Not having these meetings is a missed opportunity. Humanization would be needed.”