It all began in far 1975, when to the all-time champion, the Brazilian Pele, they were offered $4,5 million to go to the United States for three years to promote the unknown North American Soccer League, i.e. soccer in the land of baseball, basketball and hockey.
A better ambassador they could not find, i New York Cosmos, given that Edson Arantes do Nascimento (his real name) had just been world champion for the third time with his national team just five years earlier, and is still considered by many – in an eternal dispute with Maradona (and, now, with Messi) – the strongest player ever.
And in fact, despite his venerable age (35 years old, a lot for that period!) he was paid for in gold, at a time when, to give a parameter, a worker in Italy earned an average of 154 lire a month.
The black pearl was therefore the pioneer of football-marketing operations. Following him, a short time later and always in the US championship (which despite so much luxurious advertising never really took off), were Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgione Chinaglia in 1977, who is still the best scorer in that championship with 193 goals in 213 games.
Only many years later did the golden boy of football, the greatest exponent of sport business, arrive in America: the handsome Englishman David Beckham, who has been spending the winter with the Galaxy since 2007 in Los Angeles, just a stone's throw from Hollywood, to the delight of his showgirl wife Victoria and the many film producers who can't wait to convert him back to the big screen.
But other football frontiers have opened up between Pele and Beckham. Even in those cases, to be honest, little has been seen of real football, but if the ball is now followed and practiced on all continents it is also thanks, for example, to Toto Schillaci, the first Italian player to land, in 1994, in Japanese league. The hero of Italia '90 brought home five billion old lire in less than two years, just to wear the Jubilo Iwata shirt and score (we trust, easily) 56 in 78 games in the J-League.
But as a self-respecting commercial operation requires, for an exported product there is always an imported one. And therefore in the wake of Schillaci here Kazuyoshi Miura, the first slant-eyed player to set foot on the grass of a European stadium. Again in '94, with the Genoa shirt. Failed experience: he leaves a year later, and will be remembered only for a goal in a derby, however lost, with Sampdoria.
Certainly better were the subsequent performances of Hidetoshi nakata (seven seasons in Serie A, Italian champion with Roma in 2001) and now of Yuto Nagatomo, full-back for Inter. And in the meantime Japan hosted the 2002 World Cup, his movement has grown and the national team is currently coached, a sign of destiny, by the Italian Alberto Zaccheroni, with ample room for growth in view of the 2014 World Cup.
Simultaneously with the Japanese fashion, but to a lesser extent, the United States has also made a comeback: almost 20 years after Pele, in 94 they hosted the World Cup (won by Brazil), subsequently giving rise to some operations. Like the one the eccentric defender brought Alexi Lalas to become the first post-war stars and stripes footballer to tread the fields of Serie A, for two seasons with the Padova shirt. In "exchange" two great Italian players then went to America, who at the end of their glorious career respectively wore the jersey of the New York Metrostars ('96-97) and the New England Revolution ('97-99): Roberto Donadoni and Walter Zenga (who then also remained in Massachusetts as a coach), then paving the way for other champions such as Beckham or Thierry Henry, now back at Arsenal.
The former Inter goalkeeper then explored other frontiers, becoming ambassador of made in Italy in Romania (with the three teams from Bucharest), in Serbia (Red Star), in Turkey (Gaziantepspor) and above all in Arab countries, where Donadoni also kicked the ball with the Al-Ittihad (Saudi Arabia) shirt.
Zenga coached Al-Ain (United Arab Emirates) in 2007 and currently Al-Nasr Dubai, where he is a colleague of none other than Diego Armando Maradona, coach of Al-Wasl and of Quique Sanchez Flores, highly regarded former Valencia coach and also convinced by the fabulous contracts of the sheiks, whose petrodollars led them to become owners of important European clubs (Manchester City, PSG, Malaga) and to convince not only old football glories , but also players in the prime of their careers, to move to the comfortable heat of the Persian Gulf. And therefore in Al-Ahli we find the Chilean ex-Inter Luis Jimenez and the ex Wolfsburg center forward, the German champion, the Brazilian Grafite, or for example, in Al-Ain, the ex Udinese Asamoah Gyan. But above all, until before the retreat a few months ago, the Ballon d'Or Fabio Cannavaro, also in Al-Ahli.
Strong choices, like the one he brought about Samuel Eto'o to become the highest paid player in the world (20 million euros net a year) by going to explore the remote stadiums of Russia, and giving up a career with even more than prestigious prospects with the Inter shirt (which saw him as the protagonist of the legendary treble) to wear the unheard of Anzhi. Or like that one, fresh from a month ago, from Nicolas Anelka, European champion with France in 2000 and former star of Arsenal, Real Madrid and Chelsea: since January he has been the first high-level player to land in the Chinese Super League with Shanghai Shenhua, for 11 million a year.
And the next frontier? India. Cannavaro is about to cut the ribbon himself, who in theory would have hung up the last boot in the Al-Ahli locker room, but who, faced with the latest offer, is about to put on his congenital clothes as the football ambassador and of Italy.
And 'the Indian Premier League, the first football championship in a country where it practically does not exist (number 158 in the Fifa ranking). An incredible bet, and obviously well paid (we are talking about a million dollars for three months), which will see not only Cannavaro on the field but also other champions such as Crespo, Morientes, Fowler, Pires and Okocha. Practically one per team, given that only six clubs will participate in the tournament from February to April, all from the West Bengal region, around the former Calcutta, on the border with Bangladesh. And, according to the formula itself, they will share a star each, with a budget of 2,5 million per team.
The (ambitious) football goal is to take India to the 2022 World Cup. The more immediate (realistic) one is, according to the organizers, to "fill stadiums, create a new football demographic and reach fans through TV".
A bit like with Pele, almost forty years ago. And let's not be surprised if next year, on some European field, the new phenomenon of New Dehli will arrive. A Cristiano Ronaldo in curry sauce. With the blessing of Cannavaro.
