This time in Santiago de Chile we are going to play for the possibility of returning to Serie A. But 35 years ago (December 1976) we went to win (for the first and only time) the Davis Cup, the trophy that rewards the best tennis team world. A match that we risked losing, even before taking the field. Indeed, avoiding taking the field. Yes, because it was about having to go and play in Pinochet's Chile. And a large part of Italian public opinion (Berlinguer and the PCI in the lead) was worried that with our participation in the final we could give political endorsement to the dictatorship.
This is why, before leading his players (Panatta, Barazzutti, Bertolucci and Zugarelli) to conquer the most prestigious salad bowl in the world, the non-player captain Nicola Pietrangeli had to win a complicated diplomatic battle. In those days in autumn 76, the front pages of the newspapers were largely devoted to the debate on Chile yes, Chile no. I personally remember that even in the exam to practice journalism, which I had to take at the time, I was given an essay on the subject. A theme that I naturally avoided, worried about being conditioned and overwhelmed by tennis passion.
However, I have other personal memories of that affair. Indeed, I think I was a casual witness of a real turning point for the solution of that intricate story. At the time I was working at the "Voce Repubblicana" and one evening (October?) my father asked me to accompany him to via Teulada, where, as a politician and former tennis player, he would participate in a televised debate on whether or not to go to play in Santiago de Chile. Of course, dad, a member of the PRI, but above all a passionate and former second category tennis player, did not doubt that the opportunity had to be seized and that to counter the Chilean regime one had to really give everything to win. While one of our "lump sums", yes, would have helped Pinochet and his comrades.
But let's go in order, as far as possible, since we are dealing with memories that are quite distant in time. In addition to my father, two former captains of the Davis national team, Vanni Canepele and Orlando Sirola, and a Sardinian communist deputy, Ignazio Pirastu, a former boxer who, as manager of ARCI, dealt with sports problems in the PCI, took part in the televised debate. And the latter was the key figure to understand the turning point. Pirastu had arrived at the studio accompanied by Pietrangeli himself (the captain did not participate in the debate directly, but had come to follow him like me from an adjacent studio).
I immediately understood that there was an acquaintance between Nicola and the communist leader that was not recent and not unexpected, probably due to mutual friends from the world of sport. In the debate after Canepele, Sirola (very effectively explained that if one signs up for a sporting competition he must be available to face all the other participants) and my father expended themselves in arguing that that match had to be held, it was Pirastu's turn to illustrate the reasons not. As a shrewd and convinced leader-militant (that was the custom at the time) he first of all explained the strong reasons why the PCI and Berlinguer could only oppose our tennis players going to play in a country where a dictatorial regime tortured and killed his opponents. But, at the same time, he was just as clear in making it clear that neither the PCI nor its leaders would make the barricades. In short, if Italy had gone to Chile, it would have gone with the opposition of the great PCI.
Thus I gained the conviction that in the end we would have gone to gamble for the Davis Cup. A conviction that was strengthened when, after the televised debate, we went (precisely with Pirastu and Pietrangeli) to dine at the Augustea in Piazza Augusto Imperatore. There the communist parliamentarian was even more explicit, as a man of sport and as a friend of Nicola, in making it clear that the important thing at that point would have been to win in Santiago. The evening ended with Pietrangeli looking forward to a dinner of pasta and beans served in Davis Cup for his return to Italy. I don't know if there was.
The rest is sports history. Barazzutti would have immediately beaten the Chilean number 1 in the first match, a Fillol on the verge of injury, as Gianni Clerici reminded us in recent days on "Repubblica", with Panatta in a red shirt who would not have given space to Cornejo, then a victory in the double and the flag point for Chile scored by the reserve Prajoux against Zugarelli. In the background Pietrangeli settled the accounts in his favor with his old friend and delightful competitor of many matches on red clay, the Chilean non-playing captain Luis Ayala.
