The former defender, now in the Toro staff: “At 18 years of age Fiorentina, but I was sick. My father told me that the great Franco wanted to know where I was finished. I started immediately”
Footballer is born or become? Both. Emiliano Moretti has proven him. The former defender has collected 601 appearances among professionals: a long parable with blue streaks, as the oldest debutant in the national team, at 33 and a half years old. Now he is a collaborator of the technical area in Turin, at 44 he enjoys his family: his wife Carolina, psychologist, the children Matias, champion of Italy with the Under 17 bull, and Aurora, swimmer and specialist of the 200 back. Plus the Labrador Happy. His career is reborn after a twist, Moretti tells him almost softly. “We start from the beginning, at the Pantheon Travel in Rome: my first coach was Vincenzo D’Amico. Imagine my father, Lazio fan. Then Lodigiani, there was the qualitative leap: we won the Scudetto with Berretti, I made his debut in Serie C at 17 years old”.
In 2000 he moved to Fiorentina.
“It happened suddenly, in extremis in January. I was training in the Borghesiana, they call me:” Give us an answer. “With the scooter I rush to talk to mine, it was my first movement. Immediate okay to the purple, logical. I immediately went to the retirement of Viareggio, with spring”.
Better than that, the great chance.
“Here, now I speak of a topic that I have always dealt with a lot of respect. Some moments are stones on which the growth of a person is based, they become part of yourself. But I don’t want to share everything, I am not one who lets himself go, even if I consider myself sensitive and sentimental. In Florence, after the Viareggio tournament, I have a distortion to the ankle. The injury, however, did not affect the main problem. Starting a period of great difficulty, I struggled to get used to a different life, without my certainties.
But his malaise did not pass.
“One morning I raise the phone:” Dad, I take the first train and I come to Rome “. Total abandonment. There was an opportunity, now there was nothing more. For me at that moment the easiest solution was to remove the problem. I returned to Rome, to San Giovanni. To dad Luigi and mom Maria Dico:” I stop with football “. My parents were very worried: they tried to help me in every way, to make me open. Attentions bother me.
No more football, then piano B takes place.
“In superiors I studied graphic arts, completely natural with my grandfather and my father as well. I started working in the typography, I liked. Fiorentina, in the meantime, treated me with a lot of respect. They tried to understand:” We made a mistake? ” Fiorentina. And then enough, stop “.
Were you all resigned?
“Yes, but one day an episode happens that I never deepened: what came to me was enough for me. I was working on the printing car, dad does me:” Can you come to the office? ” He would have asked: but what happened to Moretti? “. I felt a blow to the stomach, to think about it I still have goosebumps. The only word that I can pronounce is” Thanks “, I go back to work. As soon as I left that room, I went back to playing football: in a moment I saw everything about it. I was in the car and I said to myself” What do I do here? ” Taken one on the fly: I was lucky, it was the turning point with a capital S “.
How did it regulate with Fiorentina?
“Yes, a detail … I had to call them back. I had stopped, they rightly after three to four months had put their soul in peace. I talked about it with dad and mom, for me the whole world had moved.” The only one is calling Fiorentina, “says dad. Okay, but how do I come back? There was a margin.
In his career he has had technicians.
“I feel like thanking them all. In Viola first Terim, then Mancini. I was with Lippi at Juve. Then Mazzone in Bologna. So Ranieri in Valencia: I was among the first to move to Spain. I found myself very well, I learned the language, there was born Matias. At Genoa I had Gasperini, at Toro Ventura, Mazzarri and Mihajlovic. High level coaches: I remember everything they taught me ”.
How was the passage to the Toro Manager?
“It was a very weighted choice. I could have continued to play, the bull had proposed me another year, but football was evolving, I struggled to make according to my standards. I was already 38 years old … maturity helps you to see reality in a deeper and I said enough. I still feel unforgettable sensations. The banner, the choirs: the affection of the people of Turin has transmitted to me deep emotions, me. and so thanks to President Cairo I took a new, different path. ”
Yes, but without that phone call he would have told another story …
“Maybe if someone reads it, my story can also help. Who knows …”.
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