Bianchi: «When I arrived in Naples there was rubbish everywhere, I had the impulse to go back to Brescia»
To Robinson: «Maradona’s relationship with the team was striking, he knew he needed his teammates. Sivori was feeling enough of the game that he was heaving before playing ».
1986 Historical Archive Image Sport / Naples / Ottavio Bianchi / photo Aic/Image ITALY ONLY
On Robinson, the weekly magazine of Repubblica, an interview by Antonio Ggnoli Ottavio Bianchi. She is almost eighty years old. He says that two knee prostheses were recently implanted in him, a complicated and painful operation that will now take him some time to walk well again. Bianchi tells of when he was a boy, when he thought that in life «there was only footballand his family.
«Simple, the humble fatherly origins did not allow for great flights or hazards. I wasn’t sure that football was, in addition to the dream, also a viable profession ».
Talk about your childhood.
«I honestly don’t remember it, or rather I remember that everything about me revolved around the ball. Usually she tends to dilate her own adolescence. But I think I haven’t had a plausible one. The fact that I was good at football took away my carefree period. For me, playing football was immediately like entering real life: commitment, sweat, profession. Win or fail».
A determination that came to him from his character, which he described.
«Bashful but tenacious. Once upon a time, a profession like mine was measured by the number of words: if there were few, they captured the essentiality of what you were doing».
And today?
“An entire vocabulary would not suffice. Talking football has far surpassed played football».
Bianchi made his debut in the youth team and then in the first team of Brescia, as an offensive playmaker. In the first match against Como he broke his knee, so the coach asked him to play halfback.
«I became the one who attacked the opponent’s ankles. Let’s say a player destined to oppose the other’s game».
After Brescia, came the Naplesjust when he was about to move to Inter.
“So the football clubs exercised absolute power over the players. And the president of Brescia had decided to go to Naples».
Were you satisfied with the choice?
«Obviously the call to Inter was every player’s dream. But even at Napoli, which hadn’t won anything, there were great players: Zoff, Sìvori, Altafini to name names that still say something today».
Bianchi talks about his arrival at Napoli.
«In 1965. With the taxi, which took me to the headquarters, I crossed a city that was experiencing one of the many street cleaners’ strikes. Garbage everywhere. I told the taxi driver to stop. The impulse was to turn around and go back to Brescia. But I was bound. I had no margins except to get a slightly richer contract. I told the next taxi driver. I arrived at the headquarters and after various vicissitudes I signed the contract ».
At the time the president was Achille Lauro.
«There was nothing that happened in Naples without her yes. An absolute monarch. He treated the Neapolitan people as if they were his direct emanation. Rumors circulated about the distribution of pasta parcels and mismatched shoes during the elections. However he was a gentleman who commanded respect. “Guagliò, they told me that you are a gentleman and that you have been paid a lot”. I replied that I had been charged for merit and certainly for nothing else. That was how my adventure at Naples began».
Bianchi tells how Naples lived as a footballer.
«That first year was marred by various injuries. I broke my other knee, I got peritonitis, I stayed still for the second round. Given that there are other real dramas, it was a tremendous blow. At that point my career was at risk and I had to react. Proving in the field that I have nothing, even when I was a boy. Masking certain ailments and at the same time having great determination. The only thing I didn’t want to do was feel sorry for myself, even though I was aware that there was no certainty about my future. Besides, I had married young and had to keep everything inside. There were no psychologists or as they call them today mental coaches.
Talk about the great players who played for Naples at the time.
«Sivori was the most talented. She noticeably felt a lot that the night before at the hotel could not sleep. Then, before taking the field, he was retching. But when he entered, like a great actor, he transformed and the performance was almost always superlative ».
Did Bianchi also feel the tension of the match?
«No, in the evening I slept very well, for me the drama was after. I mentally reviewed the match trying to understand where he had gone wrong ».
Have you always been this self-critical?
“It’s a feeling that I also carried with me as a coach.”
Bianchi talks about the relationship with Maradona.
«I have often been asked to talk about Diego. The few times I’ve done it has been with discretion due to the human events that have overwhelmed him, beyond the immense champion he was ».
Keep on:
“You can’t imagine what it was like to see him on the pitch during training. Aside from the monstrous ability, the rapport with the team was striking. As an absolute star that he was, he knew he needed companions. Diego was a splendid and generous champion».
As a man?
«One of his great friends was his trainer Fernando Signorini. I heard him say a great thing: with Diego I go around the world, with Maradona I can’t go around the block. The footballer Diego was the lightness, the unattainable music; the Maradona man was subject to unheard-of psychological expressions. He paid with interest for the immense fame he had earned on the pitch.’
How do you handle a great player?
«I don’t know, but I know that he must have an environment around him that allows him to mature. As for the coach, he must know that the great player doesn’t adapt to tactics. It’s like with jazz music, there’s improvisation, that thing you don’t expect and that makes the difference. I played against the strongest players: Pele or Cruijff to name a few. I had to hunt them down as if they were unreachable prey. Resorting to the human means I had to try to stop them. For them the ball was the extension of the foot. The field is their Olympus. And there you learn the hard way that the great player doesn’t complicate the athletic gesture. It makes the difficult easy. Everything that is beautiful in life can be traced back to simplicity».
How has football changed compared to when you played it?
«It would be enough to do the math. A mid-high-end footballer today earns around two million. Try asking an entrepreneur who has 100 workers if he manages to make a profit of two million at the end of the year. A footballer today is the center of an opaque constellation: lawyers, accountants, families, prosecutors, friends set in motion relevant interests and appetites. A good one player once, at the end of his career, put away two or three flats. It was the company that kept him under contract, deciding on his professional life. He understands that a comparison with today’s football is impossible ».
Was there an evolution?
«Culturally there was the Danube school, the epic of Pele’s great Brazil, the pragmatism of the Italian school which won a lot, the Dutch one, which however won nothing. Now there is tiki taka which needs players of great intelligence and fluency. When I was playing or training, if someone passed the ball to the goalkeeper, the stadium would come down for boos. Today the goalkeeper participates directly in the game. Today a great coach gives the club a shopping list. When I was coaching I had to make do. More than evolution, I would speak of different scenarios».