Goodbye Cesare, the mild-mannered footballer who led a happy life
It's very difficult for me to write at this time. Even thinking is too much: I'm constantly zooming backwards and forwards through a long film, but one that as of 5 A.M. this morning belongs in the past.
It's a small world when you think about it. Mine was no end enriched when my uncle Sergio married Bruna, whose own sister, Marisa, was going out with a local kid from Trieste who was playing for Milan.
His name was Cesare Maldini.
And to think that Marisa Mazzucchelli was an Inter fan. She would quickly convert and marry Cesare, thus bringing a man with whom I would go on to share genuine affection into my life.
And now he's gone.
Everyone has written about this champion's sad demise: even Al Jazeera, for whom he worked as a pundit late in his career. I, on the other hand, would like to talk about a man who left us after a six month fight... against a form of cancer (pancreatic) which generally doesn't spare people for longer.
Cesare was a good man, a gentleman, and a happy one at that. He was, in many ways, the complete opposite of the stereotypical footballer, and was happy with the beautiful game, at least until it was taken over by the extreme characters and the phoney nice.
He was one of the first to take stock of the situation the day that his old office in Milan's headquarters was moved to the end of the corridor, away from the decision-makers. He immediately realized that he was no longer needed, that the club was trying to part with one of the men who made it a world power. Despite his obvious disgust, Maldini remained as classy as ever, politely saying goodbye to Milan and leaving, never to return.
And to think that Maldini had even managed to quit smoking, in order to respect his physique and to keep his mind limber. A sacrifice many of you know is one of the hardest to make, and which he made in his study, having returned home from an away game. Crushing the packet of Marlboro in his fist, he threw it out the window, and never touched a cigarette again.
He was a great man in many ways, not least in the empathy he showed to all those around him. I remember covering the 1986 World Cup from Puebla, and falling horribly ill. Despite being manager Cesare Bearzot's right-hand man, Maldini would travel 30 kilometres every night to visit me and to comfort me, and to reassure me that we'd both make it home. As you may have guessed, he was quite the far-sighted fellow.
He was used to gazing into the distance, a habit he picked up when, as a youngster, he would wave his father goodbye as he sailed off into the sunset out of Trieste's docks. A sailor with the Italian Navy, Cesare's father would wave back from the deck... but would cease to do so long before his time.
A frustrated orphan, Cesare took it out on football, but kept at his studies so that he could become a dental technician, a promise he'd made to his father.
Maldini was a man of his word, too.
“You want to be a journalist? I can talk to the guys at the Gazzetta if you want”.
I thanked him, but told him I'd rather go it alone. And yet, when I was finally hired, it turned out that he was one of the people who had tipped me to management.
Whatever you do, don't call it favouritism: he was never like that with Paolo, either. Watching his son train in secret and from a certain distance, Cesare never even asked the coaches how his son was doing. There was only one rule: Paolo had to study. If he didn't, addio Calcio..
Wife Marisa and he wanted nothing more than a son, and were finally delivered of Paolo in 1968, after three beautiful girls.
Cesare was training at the Filadelfia when he heard the news from manager Nereo Rocco, who had convinced him to move to Turin with him from Milan.
“Go on home, you c**t!” Rocco yelled at him (he always called everyone a mona) “you're a father again!”
“Is it a girl?"
“No, it's a boy, the one you've always wanted!”
He would have two more boys, the Maldini clan becoming an iconic football family if ever there was one.
An old-school father, Maldini was the archetypal, early-20th century patriarch, flanked by a wife with much the same values. In many ways, the Maldini family was perfect, and Cesare was able to impose a unity, a collective spirit which he tried to apply to every team he worked with, from Bearzot's World-Cup winning Italy side to his own Nazionale, whether accompanied by Marco Tardelli in France 1998 or by Giuseppe Dossena with Paraguay, his last team.
And to think that managing the South Americans at the 2002 World Cup nearly cost him his life. Knocked out by a late Oliver Neuville (who is fluent in Italian, oddly enough) goal in the quarter finals, the Paraguayan team went home.
“You know Marco” he would later tell me, “we were lucky we got a ref who was either dishonest or incompetent, because I immediately left for Italy after we lost. I felt awful, and fainted when I got to Milan. I ended up nearly suffering a brain haemorrhage!"
"I think another football game would have killed me. If we'd gone through, I would have died”.
Fourteen years later, that time is sadly upon us.
Goodbye Cesare. You lived a happy life. You'll be sorely missed.
Marco Bernardini, translated by @EdoDalmonte
