Sabatini presents his book: ‘Football was my life’

An afternoon spent among dearest loved ones, friends and personalities who supported Walter Sabatini during a career dedicated to football. In this case it would almost be more appropriate to speak of an existence spent behind the ball, first in the role of a player and then fitting almost perfectly into those of the sporting director able to rekindle the dreams of entire fans. Those of Rome in the first place, but not only. A story that the former Giallorossi sports director wanted to tell in the book “My furious and solitary football”, presented at the Aniene Canottieri club in Rome in a hall that remained packed for over two hours. Institutional faces, former players and managers, all gathered to pay homage to a figure who – for each of those present – represented much more than the “market man” that the world of Italian football has become accustomed to knowing.

De Rossi and Perotti

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Many faces of Pallotta-branded Rome are present. In addition to the former Giallorossi vice president Mauro Baldissoni and the former Claudio Fenucci – who also shared the experience at Bologna with Sabatini – Diego Perotti and Daniele De Rossi (together with their father Alberto) also responded to the invitation. Among the protagonists of the presentation also the president of Coni Giovanni Malagó, who took the stage after Arianna Mihajlovic and the actor Sergio Rubini, linked to the former sports director by a long friendship.

The event

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The presentation opened with a reflection by Sabatini on the reasons which, after years, convinced him to write a book considered for too long “a useless exercise in self-certification”. But that was not the case: “One takes the notes of a lifetime to then tell them. The book generated itself. I was really pissed off about my situation so I decided to get back to center on myself. I had lost track of who I was. It is an enjoyable book, fragments of my life. There is football in the background because football has been my life”. Sabatini continues: “I dedicate the book to all those I have not mentioned. I loved all my players equally. When people offend them, I’m willing to risk my life.” Among these is Daniele De Rossi, celebrated by the former sports director before going on stage: “I consider him like a son. He will be my next coach, for him his bad luck catches me at a nefarious moment in my career. He is a coach, only I understood the work you did in Ferrara in a complicated situation. In Trigoria I watched him work. And I would do the same now, I would listen to him, I am convinced that he can do it at a very high level ”.

Smoking area

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It was De Rossi himself who revealed an anecdote dating back to Sabatini’s stay in Trigoria. In fact, the ex Roma captain spoke of Fulvio Bernardini’s office transformed into a “smoking room” by Sabatini: “The only thing I never did with the director – explains De Rossi – was to enter his studio, he was like a smoking area in an airport. We took walks outside and talked. Football is fake when you win, you have to find people who are there when things don’t go well. It was a pleasure to talk about football with him, I always felt I learned something after talking about him. Even if it didn’t last long and ended badly, I really enjoyed the experience at Spal. He makes me feel I don’t say protected, but I know that he talks about football in the same way I do and has similar values ​​to mine ”. The story of Mauro Baldissoni is also emblematic, mindful of the “battles” waged by Sabatini in order to complete market negotiations: “Periodically he had irrevocable decisions of abandonment because he had quarreled with someone from the club. I found two resignation letters, but they’re there. On the last day of the transfer market in January, we loaned a player to Brescia and decided to sell him to Sassuolo, who would buy him from us and then loan him to Brescia. But this needed a certain procedure in the League, but the time difference with the United States was also involved. Sabatini forced the secretary to write him the letter of resignation, he left slamming the door while I tried to get the okay from the United States but no one answered me ”.

Mihajlovic and Malagò

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The number one of Coni Malagó, on the other hand, went into the merits of the title chosen by the former sporting director for his book: “I don’t agree with the title of the book, I don’t like the adjective ‘furious’, it’s inelegant. I would have written romantic”. A criticism to which the historic DS promptly replied: “My football is furious, indeed furious. I have been a football acrobat and now the physicist is presenting me with the bill. But I will be like this as long as the physicist allows me. And yes, it is solitary football.” On the other hand, the moment in which Arianna Mihajlovic reached Sabatini (visibly moved) to remember her deceased husband was particularly touching: “Walter and his wife Fabiola have been by my side a lot, especially in Sinisa’s last months, I will never forget it. I love him so much.”