Jukka Pakkanen, 83, was charmed by two sports early on – The other is “like a mistress”

The men’s World Cup will be played for the first time among no less than 48 participating countries. There are first-timers like Uzbekistan, Jordan, Cape Verde and Curaçao, but the four-time world champion Italy was once again left behind.

A writer known as a great friend of Italy Jukka Pakkanen there is a lot missing from the competition experience.

Hailing from Helsinki, Pakkanen’s affection for football was born already in the 1950s when he was playing with a friend.

– One spring evening, he asked to go along to HJK’s training. I thought I wasn’t good enough, so I didn’t go. I could have become a player: I would have been a number eight, a true center forward.

Pakkanen got quite far in basketball, as well as in racing cycling, which he practiced for ten years.

Wife and lover

Of the sports, Pakkanen is most passionate about racing cycling and football, which are the two biggest sports in Italian sports.

– Cycling is like a wife, football is like a mistress, Pakkanen says.

– I knew everything about cycling, but football still gives me something new: a simple game with a huge number of layers. Cultures have their own team games and endurance sports: we have ice hockey and skiing, in Italy cycling and football.

Pakkanen’s first contact with Italy was in 1955 during the family’s trip to Europe, where one day was spent in the boot country.

– In 1963, I was a passenger on a cargo ship and spent a week and a half in La Spezia. I was sitting in street cafes, when the seed of the relationship with Italy was sown. Years later, I took a trip to Florence and Venice with my family, and the relationship began to deepen. I learned the language on my own and started visiting the country two or three times a year. If there was an opportunity to use the language in Finland, I boldly went to speak.

The story continues after the fact box.

The 83-year-old Pakkanen does not consider himself a real fan of Italy, even though his relationship with the country is deep.

– I haven’t moved on sunny coasts, but in cities, even in dark places. I know something about the Italian culture of life, which is very different from Finland: I’m not saying better, but different.

Pakkanen admires the Italian sense of history and “everyday civilization”.

– History is always close by and everyday Civilization can be seen in the attitude towards other people: thank you, sorry and please are used.

from Inter

The relationship with Italian football deepened when Pakkanen discovered Milan’s Inter in the 1970s. He has written a book about his love of football The San Siro dreamer.

– At the time, I saw a minute-long clip about Inter’s game on Urheirurutu. The colors were charming.

When Pakkanen got to know the history of Inter, everything seemed to suit him.

– The history of Inter is also the history of Italy: Mussolini removed the word internazionale from the Italian language in 1928, when Inter became Ambrosiana until Mussolini was liquidated. This also made an impression and I felt like I belonged to inters.

Pakkanen started following Serie A, which he later began to report on TV. Pakkanen’s low voice, calm way of speaking and philosophical backgrounds left an original imprint.

For many sports fans, Pakkanen’s football and cycling reports were the most anticipated part of the sports broadcasts of the 1980s and 1990s.

– I think I could have explained a little better. I heard from my son that some people liked my style and some didn’t. Those who didn’t like it were usually young people who would have liked to hear the speed and the screams. Nowadays, there are narrators who talk all the time, some even shout.

Tardell ventilation

In the cold, the club team runs ahead of the national teams. Still, prestigious football tournaments have had a special place in the writer’s heart: especially in the years when Azzurri has managed.

– In 1970, I was on the island of Saimaa during the Games. I rowed to the mainland at least a kilometer away to watch the dramatic semi-final between Italy and West Germany on the television of a country house.

I remember the 1982 championship the best, and especially by Marco Tardelli wild ventilation after the final goal.

– I am not religious myself, but there was something religious in Tardell’s airing: after running half around the field, he stopped in the center circle, where he made the sign of the cross.

Years later, Pakkanen got the chance to meet Tardell when he was coaching Inter.

– I was with my son at the club’s training center, where Tardelli gave an interview to the media. I had taken such a position that I would have time to say something to him. The interview ended and Tardelli rushed along, with quick steps towards the suit shelter, so I was in a hurry. After catching up with him, I introduced myself and thanked him for the great goal.

Another memorable event was the Italian home games in 1990. Pakkanen followed the games in Milan with his son.

– We went to watch all the matches of Milan’s first season. The Milan audience was on the side of West Germany, because the German trio played in Inter’s ranks Lothar Matthäus, Andreas Brehme and Jurgen Klinsmann.

Pakkanen describes the atmosphere of the Games as magical.

– Italy lived those games really strongly. The team was great, but Argentina knocked them out in the semi-finals. The game was played in Naples, which was Maradona’s city, so the Italian media had to work hard to get the Neapolitans on Italy’s side. Finally it worked.

The Finn experienced Italian fanaticism after the game ended.

– I was living in Milan on the fifth floor when, after the game was over, I started hearing a car screeching from below. I thought it was an Argentine celebrating it, but I saw a lone car on the street with an Italian flag flying from the window. I realized this was just football.

A beautiful, cruel game

When thinking about the qualification of the current Italian team, Pakkanen gives a philosophical answer, which is like a glimpse of the man’s reports from the past years.

– Cliché: this is football. One bad pass can make a huge difference. Soccer is a beautiful, cruel game. The player has the ball, time and space are decreasing, so you have to do something. A lot can follow from what you do in a single situation.

Pakkanen has already accepted that Italy will not be seen at this summer’s games.

– I have had to get used to disappointments with Inter, so this is not so terrible. It’s actually liberating not to have a favorite. I support Sweden and Norway. Norway has an excellent team. I also like Argentina for some reason, maybe it’s because of the beautiful shirt.

Pakkanen, who lives in Espoo, believes that Italy will return to the top, because the country’s cultural base in football is huge.

Pakkanen, who has worked as a freelance writer since 1976, has remained healthy and productive even at the age of 83. He has written forty works, twenty of which are novels.

The latest creation of the ultimate football romance will be released in the fall.

– My own voice is quite a large work that takes place in this time of the world as well as in the past.