Gianluca Vialli is dead: the memory of the fans of Genoa and Sampdoria
Genoa – Mobile phone in hand, gaze fixed on the building of the Liguria Region where a video is projected in a loop which, in 40 seconds, tries to concentrate a myth. Thus many Genoese, blucerchiati or rossoblù, have chosen to pay homage to Gianluca Vialli, who died in London at the age of 58, betrayed by that “uncomfortable traveling companion” – as he himself defined him – who took him away. “I support Genoa, but I couldn’t miss today – says a rossoblù fan, while taking a photo of the words “Ciao Gianluca” with his mobile phone -. With him the colors take a back seat: he has always been a great player“.
Piazza de Ferrari, overlooked by the Palazzo della Regione, is not crowded, but anyone passing by looks up to encounter some of the most exciting moments in the life and career of the number 9 of Sampdoria. Someone, on the other hand, arrived there on purpose, looking for a place to share their pain: you can recognize yourself from the same shirt or scarf, rigorously blucerchiata. We come together in small groups, we look at each other with eyes full of tears: “He was a humble and extraordinary person – recalls a fan – His importance goes beyond the football result: it seems trivial, but he was one of us” .
Enrico Nicolini: “Vialli wanted to be president of Samp, they prevented him”
“Samp has always been in his soul and heart and we know how much he would have liked to take the reins, but unfortunately he didn’t make it” recalls another fan. You don’t hear chants, you don’t see flags or smoke bombs: but the organized fans are already preparing a great moment to celebrate the champion. Not today: today is the time for pain, compound pain, in full Genoese style. The groups of supporters, many families with children, meet, embrace each other, remembering the times in the stadium where Gianluca Vialli, paired with Mancini, enchanted the curve, bringing ever higher the colors of Sampdoria by Mantovani. “I was six years old when I started going to the stadium – says another fan, wearing the number 9 shirt and the surname Vialli -. I saw him play and it was immediately love. Then the Scudetto: winning that Scudetto was like win three hundred league titles in Rome, Milan. Here it is worth ten thousand times as much. E we still have that team under our skin“.
Beppe Dossena remembers Vialli: “It was impossible not to love him”
Also in the square was a former teammate of Vialli, Giuseppe Dossena, moved by the memory of “Luca”, as he calls him: “I don’t want to remember him only for his courage, which he had so much, but also for his generosity. He loved to live. My gripe is one: I will never be able to get over why those who have to leave us, suffer as he suffered”.
Even outside the Luigi Ferraris stadium throughout the day the fans went to leave a flower and/or a souvenir of the player who symbolizes Sampdoria’s Scudetto. Several banners hung from the gate outside the South steps – which some Sampdoria fans are now asking to name after Gianluca Vialli – with photos of the bomber in the Sampdoria shirt and phrases of thanks.