The derby climate never wanes. And from the field we quickly move on to Instagram live broadcasts, a virtual place that transforms into a ring for provocations, teasing and broadsides. This is how it went two years ago, when during a live broadcast to celebrate Inter’s 20th scudetto, Calhanoglu, Thuram and Lautaro joked about the name of the Argentine striker’s dog, alluding to the fact that his name was Theo like the rottweiler depicted on a leash from Dumfries on a fan’s banner. “Do you know his name?” Lautaro asked his teammates. And Thuram: “No, no, shut up!”. The social world went wild, just like today. Same social network (Instagram), same live, same protagonists: Thuram and Calhanoglu. The Frenchman asks: “Where is Lauti?”. “I don’t know, out with his dog…” Hakan replies. “No, no, no, no come on… Ah, does he really have a dog?”. “Yes, yes, I’m serious, I’m not alluding to that thing” adds the Turk. “I don’t know, Lauti often goes for walks on the pitch with the dog at San Siro, sometimes on Sundays”. And then here is Calhanoglu’s smile. Old rusts, same provocations.
THE PROVOCATION
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In the flow of the live broadcast, between jokes and allusions, there is also a passage that mixes irony and annoyance at the criticism. “Are there prizes for winning big matches?” Thuram asks ironically, who knows, perhaps alluding to his cousins who won both derbies but then lost the championship. The tone initially remains light: “There are a lot of people who get angry… because we don’t win the big matches, because we’re old… but have they invented a prize for those who win the big matches?”. The Turkish reply is dry and almost ritualistic: “Blablabla”. But then the register changes. Thuram abandons the joking attitude and becomes more direct: “There are people who hate us and want to kill us.” Words that open up to a deeper outburst, in which he distinguishes between sports criticism and gratuitous hatred: “I’m really happy with this championship, because outside the Inter world there are truly bad people. I understand rooting for another team and not being happy with our victories, I understand if you boo us, but I don’t understand this malice. There are people who hate us, who would like to kill us, it hurts my heart. Why do they write to me, do you have to die? I don’t understand it, but luckily there are also good fans, who understand that we simply do our job.”
