Forty years in May, Alino full-field: “The penalty of Euro 2012? I remember Bologna-Novara with more pleasure. I would like Napoli to win the Scudetto, a people who deserve it. Mancini like mine? I like Dimarco”
Alino Diamanti gets there first. He dribbles, anticipates the question or eludes it with “fifty-fifty” English: “I learned it on the streets, the many Italians here in Australia appreciate it. Then it’s easier for you because they don’t glare at you if you get a word wrong “. His, rather than a chat, is a philosophy lesson from the first university semester: concept, explanation, example. Not necessarily in that order. We talk about English, people’s houses, Tuscanisms, matches in Bologna, Dybala “and then IDK”. Then Diamanti takes you by the hand and carries you on a roller coaster, skirting a punishment under the intersection in Australia and an afternoon-salvation in Livorno.