Javier Zanetti
La Maglia Numero 4 o del Paradosso

Let's clear the field right away, especially the playing field, from rhetoric: football, that thing with televisions and broadcasts and sponsors and sports newspapers (sports? come on...) with rich and very rich men and little men, and idiots, often very poor, who idolize them, what it is, in fact, football today, does not allow anyone with a minimal dose of decency (alas no longer common, like the unfortunate sense it once was), the unlikely and graceful images that certain sports journalists (journalists? come on...) feel compelled to spread over the air or on paper. The honest and indomitable Captain who crosses history and reaches the finish line of his career without blemish, a symbol of the natural purity of sport, we leave to them.

Of course, those who have watched him over the years know that these things are probably true, and incredibly authentic, because even his way of playing (and the respect paid to him by all opponents) seems to have testified to the nature of the man. And then the legendary run and the workout, on the very day of his wedding, leaving spouse and guests behind, to not interrupt the inflexible discipline of athletic preparation, should testify to exemplary dedication and professionalism, rather than a form of a concerning obsession.

As if these anomalies were not enough to make us suspicious, there's the "humanitarian" side of the character. And here the rhetoric, which we were naively trying to keep at bay, breaks the banks and overflows. But we remain somewhat bewildered discovering that his Foundation is not a sham and unpresentable, as is now customary: the Captain and his team truly do things, and well too, according to what several Argentinians (some, inexplicably, Juventus supporters!) tell me.

You would expect the secret hobby of such a guy, to balance the unbearable heaviness of virtue, to be at least domestic violence against his own and others' children and some occasional serial murder (imagine him splashed with blood, a rouge Pollock, smiling with a full set of teeth, impeccably groomed: Dexter, basically, and you'd even enjoy it). It seems not, there are no elements, even of simple circumstantial nature, from ongoing investigations that allow formulation of accusations of that kind.

In short, an Argentinian, who arrived twenty years ago in Italy (as the side dish to yet another, but certainly not last, reckless purchase by Inter, such as Sebastian Rambert) to play football, who played football, and did it to the best of his ability, as it should be if you are a footballer. Training regularly and offering the maximum of his athletic and technical potential in exchange for substantial reward. An Argentinian who, I suppose, understood how rare it is to obtain, by doing well something you like to do, such a substantial reward and acted accordingly, managing his career carefully and spending part (a small part) of so much fortune and "visibility" (sorry for the term, I'm tired, surrendering to vulgarity) for someone who will not have it. So far a decent person, a man as he should be. A good player too, I dare say, at times an excellent player, but certainly not a superstar or phenomenon. His very nickname, the Tractor, seems to adapt to this epic of normality, work, tenacious concreteness.

And then why? Why has such a "normal" man, so far from the stereotype of every other idol in shorts, so useless to the cause of eternal football gossip, so well-groomed!!! become the CAPTAIN? Why did we have to witness that pathetic ceremony, even a bit low-key and poorly managed (television-wise), of the retirement of jersey number 4, forever and 4 ever, which no one can wear again because it has been consigned to history? Is it true then, that the "healthy values of sport" ultimately always pay off, prevail in spite of everything, despite football? No, don't tell me that, we can't really believe it...

I have an idea, and I think it has some foundation. The greatness of the Captain, his most unthinkable and incredible achievement, was to wear and honor that jersey for 20 years and, on that jersey, that band, being the human specimen most antithetical and least assimilable to a team like Inter. That is not crazy due to excess rhetoric, but due to deoxyribonucleic acid. That can only be like that, stubbornly devoted to waste, dissipation, approximation, desperate attempt and negligence, improvisation and lack of balance. The exact opposite of that Argentinian, who arrived in Italy twenty years ago, to play football in the wrong team.

Jersey number 4 is nothing but a misunderstanding turned icon, a formidable paradox. And time, which has nothing else to do, will make more and more evident the paradoxical nature of this indissoluble union, because there is no possibility (and an Inter fan knows it) that one day, at the Martini Terrace or from some TV studio in Jakarta, a completely ordinary alien will be introduced to the public willing to offer all its impossible, inimitable normality to what remains of any crazy team.