Le Roi was the absolute protagonist in the first evening of the Sports Festival: “Even my opponents loved me because I always respected football. My Italian roots? I’m discovering your country now, as a tourist”
Families with young children, middle-aged gentlemen wearing 80s black and white shirts, fans with vintage photos on their cell phones. Michel Platini, three Ballon d’Or winners, 70 years old last June, arrives at the Trento Festival and the Santa Chiara Auditorium becomes a curve, composed, nostalgic and affectionate. Le Roi responds with a smile to the long initial applause and admits: “Was I also nice to non-Juventus fans? The important thing for me was to entertain the public, I never made fun of the other fans, I had a different mentality.”
irony
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Without giving up his irony (“What can’t I stand about your country? Journalists”), Le Roi talks about himself across the board, starting with his Piedmontese roots. “In my family they didn’t speak Italian. I only knew Agrate Conturbia, Cesenatico, Bobby Solo and the memories of Mexico 70. After all, as Brera said, I played Italian in France and French in Italy. What do I love about here? The goals scored… But I spent years only seeing stadiums and hotels, now I have visited the Amalfi Coast and I will go to Venice, finally as a tourist”. Lots of football, in his story. “The move to Juve? I had already signed with Inter but foreigners couldn’t arrive. Boniperti asked me ‘Do you want to speak to the lawyer? I thought he meant mine: ‘He’s here’. ‘No, the other lawyer…’. What did Agnelli ask me? ‘We have to win the Champions Cup’. ‘I’ll take care of it'”. Yet the start at Juve, in 1982, was not easy. “I said to Boniperti, if you take me and Boniek and make us play like in the 40s it won’t work. Then I took care of myself and we started strong.” And the affection for the Pole remains, despite the memory of the water bombs he suffered after the European Championship won in 1984 by the Blues. “I don’t remember the goals I let him score but the ones he let me score. But he missed a lot of them. I told him: ‘I’ll throw you the ball, you go down, wait for me to come and score’. However, even if Michel vows not to regret the defeats (“And I’m too proud to regret something I’ve done”), the memories of a beautiful Juve mix with the wounds. “The final lost against Hamburg in Athens? The best doesn’t always win. But in 1984 I was the best in the world. In fact, I was the best since I was born. Even if the player rankings are nonsense, you can’t compare champions from different eras.” His only concern was defensive football. But today one joke is enough: “I went where the Trap said. Yes, but then I went back to where I said.”
director
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Then he retired at 32. “It was a complicated moment due to physical problems and what had happened in Brussels. I was worn out, and life isn’t good if you don’t score goals. I didn’t even want to be a backward director, like Pirlo.” And, for Le Roi, there is a problem in his role today: the 10s play on the wing, not in the middle. A limit, according to him, also for today’s Juventus star, Yildiz. Between a bitter consideration on the Fifa case that damaged him (“Life is not always easy but who knows, one day he might not be able to go on a counterattack and score”), an observation on the VAR (“If I had been the president of Fifa it would never have been there. Let’s leave a human dimension to football, at most let’s put it on offside”), Platini can finally only respond to the audience who asks him to return to Juventus as a manager or coach: “There is no lives a love story twice, I prefer to do something for the good of football.” And then, a thousand autographs.
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