The former Sampd’oro world champion midfielder with zero minutes in 82: “The coach preferred athletes without extra -football interests, but in Hammamet with Cossiga I was like a child in a toy store. And avenue …”
Listening to him speak, immediately it is natural to ask what Beppe Dossena has to do with a world that is often painted as superficial, empty, by someone even rotten. However, in the end, evidently this is not the case. Because by telling of his past, the former Sampd’oro Scudetta midfielder is very particular anecdotes, including extra-challenges, between sports, politics (friendship with Craxi), and … social.
Dossena, what is “Special Team”?
“A third sector entity that aims to take care of the community of sportsmen of all disciplines, both those in activities and above all post career. The president is Paolo Maldini. I understand that public opinion can think ‘oh well, they are people who have thrown away the money’, but we are talking about inactive individuals for the country that have fundamental soft-skills for the world of work. Sport cannot be the conquest of a medal”.
And speaking of medals, they stole the most precious: the world gold of 82. Has the Federation ever moved to make another one?
“No, and I don’t appeal. It has passed too long. But my life is like this: even when I won the first Africa Cup under 20 with Ghana my medal disappeared. Let’s say that I don’t have to live on memories, my story teaches me. It will not be a title to make me live better. It would have been correct to return it at the time”.
In that Spanish expedition, however, he did not collect even one minute. A regret?
“Even that an absence, like the medal! And from number 10. But no, no regret: Bearzot had his hierarchies but witnessed his esteem in Causio, pissed off a little Altobelli … it was right so”.
He conquered the national team well before the historic Scudetto with the Sampdoria of 1991.
“In that locker room, everything happened, but every time you got to the limit you did not go further. In compliance with a person: Paolo Mantovani. The greatest president ever encountered in life, one who always gave you the right answer. Then there was vialli the tactician and Mancini left the strategist … The first arrived already very prepared, the second had an extraordinary instinct”.
The most beautiful memory linked to Vialli?
“A Sanremo Festival: he and I went to see the final, won the Pooh with the song ‘Men Solo’. Luca was the ideal companion also for a 15 -day boat holiday”.
Then his farewell to Doria: from a brace in the Champions League to C1 with Perugia. Why?
“I had to gratitude to President Mantovani: I made that choice to avoid becoming a weight. We met every week because he didn’t want to send me away, but I wanted to continue playing, I got the offer of Gaucci and so determined. That it was Serie A, B or C. I always wanted to feel free: the most important gift after health, freedom”.
In fact, in his career he has traveled half world: Ghana, Arabia, Paraguay, Albania, Libya, Ethiopia.
“But the current moment is delicate, in my opinion we are coming to an epochal revolution. Boys born today could not enjoy such experience. The political situation is complex everywhere”.
He never hid his passion for politics: a degree, the candidacy with the PSI, Craxi …
“But I would not apply again. I had time to chase the change, I graduated in political science with historical address and I never hid my friendship with Bettino Craxi. The greatest history lessons, however, I learned on the two occasions when I went to Hammamet with Cossiga and the President of the Tunisian Republic: I seemed like a child inside a toy shop. But candidate I attracted many criticisms, my position. Bearzot towards me: he wanted a total athlete who did not express interests other than football.
How did he become a friend of Craxi?
“A ‘Sports Sunday’, Beppe Viola told me ‘Ah, but you players don’t think, don’t talk, not even vote’. Then I replied: ‘Of course I vote, the socialist party: Bettino Craxi’. Then a card came to me: ‘A grenade shirt and a red carnation are worth a friendship’. So we became friends.”
Is it true that as a boy he dried the prostitutes?
“In Porta Palazzo, at midnight, I was faster than Usain Bolt. Not even he would have reached me. I was 14 years old and played in the youth of Turin. The tram left me on foot for 700 meters: bottles that flew, fighting everything. Today the blue phone would have denounced my mother and father, but I grew up. And I could not talk to anyone, because I was in the college alone. But it was never a sacrifice. I went to bed and I was looking forward to waking up and returning to training, without ever thinking I would become a footballer. ”
How do you evaluate today’s Sampdoria?
“In recent years they have made everything wrong. Player trading? Mission failed. Risen a decorated club? Another failed mission. The football system must make more checks. It is all absurd: many things are known but they do not say. I think it is better to make a club fail rather than to deceive people. Then tensions are born … and I am referring to everything.
How, for example, that of Paolo Mantovani.
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