4 March 1979, Roma-Catanzaro 1-3 with Palanca’s hat-trick is a page in the history of our football: “Mazzone as a Roman won with the Giallorossi and took the applause. Who looked like me? Pepito Rossi”
At the Military in Catanzaro, when in the 70s and 80s Massimo Palanca approached the corner flag, Cinderella somewhere nodded. Palanca watched the ball, among infinite silences and profound stillness he tried to concentrate and finally kicked with his fairy foot, a number 37 more like a dancer than a left winger with the mustache of a male blackbird. Defying the laws of gravity and logic – but who wants to score from there? – by inventing a crooked and irresistible geometry, Palanca knew how to seize an opportunity in every gust, a possibility in every draft. The wind was his friend. Goals from corners became his specialty.