Pablito is dead , Pablito is alive. In the memory of an entire country and of the football lovers from all over the world who today said goodbye to Vicenza, the city where his talent exploded for the first time and to which Paolo Rossiand remained tied up for the rest of his life. As well as his name will remain forever imprinted on the blue shirt, goalscorer and symbol of victory at the Spanish World Cup in 1982. The six goals scored in three games – between the quarterfinals and the final – against Brazil, Poland and Germany. The irrepressible joy. Italy returning to the top of the world after almost fifty years. Pablito, el hombre del partido, as Rossi himself liked to be defined. “But that affectionate nickname was not given to him in Spain, but four years earlier, at the 1978 World Cup”, he recalls in this chat with Formiche.net Pierluigi Battista, columnist for Corriere della Sera and always a great fan of football. “Pablito because he was young of course, but not just for a personal data. He too because he was thin in body, because he was fast, because he had that beautiful smile and was an ironic person “. Paolo Rossi therefore becomes Pablito in 1978, at the end of what, according to Battista , “was the darkest decade of the second post-war period: terrorism, economic crisis, political killings. The same Argentina that hosted and won the World Cup was the Argentina of the gorillas, the Argentina of the military dictatorship of Jorge Videla . A rather gloomy world, of absolute pessimism “. Rossi ‘s starhe also begins to light up on the international scene, in Italy he is already scoring an avalanche of goals with Lanerossi Vicenza. In Argentina, his goals are three, the exact goal of those he would have achieved 4 years later in Spain. But as in many success stories, even Paolo Rossi , before reaching the blue sky of Madrid, experienced the pain of the fall. The football betting, the disqualification: “It was a sensational case of media trial and lynching. Pablito’s path was also difficult, made up of defeats that were then overturned ” Rossi remains out for two years, returns shortly before the world championship and Enzo Bearzot, among the criticisms, he summons it. “I arrive in Spain inevitably out of shape. But slowly I start to get up and then I drag Italy to victory. The team was strong of course, but Pablito scored ”. And how, by the way: “He was always in the right place at the right time. It was a small bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning. It appeared where it was supposed to appear. They are the goals to Paolo Rossibecause he was intelligent, because he knew how to position himself well, because he played cunning. because he was able to anticipate a few moments, to imagine where the ball would arrive and to be ready ”. And then with a physique so different from the other players: “His is a little reminiscent of the story of David against Goliath: in the face of the brute and massive strength of the defenders of the time, the one who apparently seemed the weakest, instead managed to win. He didn’t play with strength, with power. And for this, in the end, he was even more decisive and insightful “.
The World Cup in Spain, the most beautiful and unexpected victory, Italy pouring into the squares, but to embrace and celebrate. As if, in a certain sense, thanks to Paolo Rossiour country has managed to put the gloom of the 70s behind it and definitively enter the new decade: “The 80s have always been a bit denigrated, like the years of light-heartedness, enrichment, disengagement. I lived them in a completely different way, there was a sense of liberation, a new optimism, the newfound confidence after a very complicated period. They were a revolution, they really destroyed a world ”. And they created a new one, of which Pablito was the undisputed symbol: “ Paolo Rossiand that stuff there. In the physical, in the way of acting, in the race, in the rapidity of the movements, in the intelligence. He was not just any center forward scoring a goal. Strikes the imagination of the ’80s that were coming and mark the passage of an era, in full harmony with that public spirit ”.
And even the world ended up falling in love with him, as has also emerged in these last days of mourning after his death: “I remember that in the summer of 1983 I went on vacation to an island in Greece and some local boys they invited me to play football. There were two phrases that always repeated: Italy and Greece, a face, a race and then Italy Paolo Rossi. In those years we were known in the world also thanks to him. Pablito fascinated precisely because he was not brute strength, but intelligence, elegance, style. In that we have always been strong. A little bit the key to Made in Italy “.
The icon of a season that today, in full pandemic, seems even more distant: “In this situation in which we are all worried, sad, depressed, the loss of him is very significant. There is no Sandro Pertini who exults, there is no atmosphere of joy, there is no longer Paolo Rossi . The hero we still need so much but who unfortunately left us so early at 64 ”. Farewell Pablito, el hombre del partido. And thanks for everything.
