For once we can say it without exaggerating: Italian football is in a storm. Bad weather, which is creating big inconvenience to the whole country, it also poured into our Serie A, which once again showed the world its shortcomings. Under accusation are the stadiums, inadequate to withstand the bad weather, but also the calendars, clogged and slaves of television beyond all limits. In this storm of snow and controversy, we are witnessing a real change of age: the grandstands have become more important than the playing fields.
The GOS (Gruppo Operativo Sicurezza) has postponed several matches (above all that of Parma) due to the impracticability of the stands. In all this, however, the thoughts of the players are not clear: what is it like to play in the snow? FIRSTonline asked three great exes from the past, who lived through the era in which we played always and everywhere. Michelangelo Rampulla (goalkeeper from 1979 to 2002, a life in Juventus), Massimo Brambati (active from 1985 to 1999, defender for Turin and Bari) and Evaristo Beccalossi (unforgotten playmaker for Inter) tell us their point of view on football and on the snow.
"For a goalkeeper, snow is a disaster, - tells Michelangelo Rampulla – The ball bounces differently, the trajectories are completely distorted. I've played with both sleet and snow already attached to the ground, in both cases I had major problems. I still remember a Champions League match in Romania (6/12/1995, Steaua Bucharest – Juventus 0 – 0 ed), every time there was a low shot there was trouble. The worst, however, occurs with the frozen fields: you don't have the possibility to concentrate, you just have to think about standing. Sometimes I had to play with soccer shoes or even without studs, similar to tennis shoes. It was the only way to stand."
Of the same opinion too Evaristo Beccalossi, an important exponent of the category of fantasists: “Playing in the snow was a disaster for me. I still remember a Brescia – Juventus, with a great player like Michel Platini on the pitch. It was us more technical players who had more difficulties: you never knew which trajectory the ball could take, once it shot at supersonic speed and the next minute it stopped under your foot. It is useless to hide it, the show is penalized, because dribbling and passing become very difficult".
All agreed then? No, because if goalkeepers and forwards think one way, it's not the same for defenders: "I have always been very happy with the snow, because I liked the fast game, while the ice was much more dangerous – says Massimo Bramble yourself – In general I believe that a defender always gets an advantage from these fields compared to other players. The reality is that everything has changed today, matches are suspended to preserve spectators even before the players. In my day we just played, and I think the fans didn't mind either. I still remember a Turin-Juventus derby on 31 December 1988: during the warm-up, the Maratona curve filled the Juventus players with snowballs. Poor Laudrup, he was forced to flee to the locker room…”.
Other times and other football. When the spectators were less pampered and the players more "normal", but everyone had more fun.
