The former champion tells: “Today I enjoy time and I manage four fields from Padel with my friend Cesare Prandelli”
Unforgettable seasons. “The summers of Milano Marittima. I was 18, 20 years old. I was becoming popular.” Antonio Cabrini was a symbol of Italian football, beautiful, good, titled. But at some point he moved away from the ball. “For heaven’s sake, if they call me for a TV broadcast I don’t say no, but I see few games.”
“A goalkeeper who touches the ball 70 times to the race for me is unacceptable. I have a different idea, but I would not seem to seem old. Mine are only opinions, I don’t say that this football is worse than mine. I only say that it is different and I find myself little. I am perplexed, like so many. But football moves so many interests, it is an industry and you have to take into account this too. My world was different”.
But she was one of the first to create an image, to jump into advertising.
“True. All thanks to Vitale then owner of Robe di Kappa. We met one day after the 1982 World Cup and said to me:” You are perfect “. I started with his brand, then other brands contacted me”.
“Yes. Then Paolo Rossi arrived and not just him. I think I have opened a road.”
Maybe because it was also beautiful. Is it true that he still has bags of fans’ letters?
“Stuff forty years ago, even more. I think I will never open them.
Was it flattered by so much attention?
“More than anything else surprised. But he knows, after a world championship, the sandwiches, the TVs … was there”.
Do you miss something about that period?
“Time passes. We have a chat we champions of 82, we are always in contact. But then in life other things are made and the changes must be accepted”.
Is time a friend or an enemy?
“Time exists and I try to enjoy it. I do things that I could not do as a young man, like traveling more or enjoying the summers on the beach. When I played the summer ended up early because it went to retreat”.
Yet about football does not miss anything …
“I miss friends. My football was fun, there was human contact. Juve trained in a field a few steps from the stadium, in the middle there was only one road, Corso Sebastopoli, to cross. There were the fans, 15-20, which were waiting for us every day, the relationship was direct, chatted. Now among the fans and players there is a distance. But I repeat, I was another world and I understand.”
He talked about friends. She was a roommate of Paolo Rossi for years.
“Ten, to be exact, in the national team. He was a wonderful person as well as being a great champion. He had crazy qualities despite the physicist Gracilino. But it was nice to live it beyond football. When the games ended up, there was little ball. There were jokes, many laughter. Paolo was a funny guy”.
Other friendships in your past world?
“The closest friend is Cesare Prandelli, we practically grown together. I like it because he is a direct person, who pays attention to the point. We started at the Cremonese, we found ourselves at Juve. I also had a good relationship with Manuela, the wife who is no longer there. Now Cesare and I manage together four Padel fields in Cremona”.
Here, the Padel. His recent passion.
“Mia and of many former footballers who have fun and have found a physical activity that still makes them feel in shape. Plus they are always competitive, they are all people who enjoy giving battle and does not want to lose. For this reason the Padel works for them”.
What do you remember about your childhood?
“Freedom. It was played in the Hague from morning to evening, nobody was afraid of nothing. Now if a child leaves a few meters logically, the panic takes off”.
The figure who has counted more in football?
“The first coach to the Cremonese, Nolli. It was he who set me as a fluidifier. One day the left back was missing, he said to me: Fa were the present that I was a wing and replied, he does nothing, you are also good there. I accepted to play and began my story. In football things also happen by chance”.
Did he play a thousand games: the favorite?
“Another episode linked to the Years of Youth: the final of a tournament that I played with the students of the Cremonese. We were beating Juve with penalties, there were players who would then have made his way: Paolo Rossi, Marangon, Moroccan, Zanone. Many I found them over the years. I was lucky enough to cross the same people in his career, boys who saw football like me”.
It is strange, however, that among many you remember a game played by a boy from Cremonese …
“It was the first successful success, something that remains inside you forever. Then, clear, I could tell her the intercontinental final won with Juve in Tokyo. But certain emotions experienced at that age are indelible”.
Cabrini, are we sure that time is a friend?
“I can pass it very well.”
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