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By Root 357 0

seconds, followed by pieces of whole fruit—there was more good food on him than there was on the table before long. And that’s when I started to like him. Eyes staring off into the middle distance, he went on singing like a drowning cat, like a stuck pig, for nearly two solid minutes. Garbled lyrics, a depressingly dreary melody: my old president from A. C. Milan, Silvio Berlusconi, would have summed it up with the words: “Of course, a typical Communist.” Instead, the entire roster of Chelsea F. C. did something far worse: they let him finish the song. They refused to take pity on him, refused to interrupt that bloodcurdling cacophony, refused to let him go back to his chair in disgrace, go to bed without finishing his supper. And it was the last verse that truly screwed him, because when he reached the point where his teammates just couldn’t take it anymore, someone finally let fly that blessed dinner fork.

I stared at it, suspended in midair. It was graceful in a way. It revolved as it flew, defying the law of gravity, like a precision missile. A very smart bomb, a bomb with an impeccable ear for music. As it reached the end of its trajectory, it slowed down and changed direction, like a football someone had kicked with a little downward-curving English on it. The fork was embarrassed, too. At that exact moment, I had my vision. When it comes to food and eating utensils, my brain is a one-way street, leading to my stomach. The association was instantaneous and organic: fork = steak. I smiled, and for an instant I was the happiest man in the room. Certainly happier than Yuri, who was by now tethered, a hostage, to his subhuman yodel. Čech wanted to put on his helmet to protect his ears. Malouda was the wildest, whistling and howling and stamping his feet as if he were possessed by the devil. It was a three-ring circus. I looked around for a red nose I could strap to my face, but I couldn’t find one—no clowns, boys, not tonight. Zhirkov still hasn’t fully recovered from the trauma. But thanks to people like him, and like me, like all the others, and like Bruno Demichelis (who is a genuine psychologist and a refined tenor, and who sang Nessun Dorma on that unforgettable evening), we became the team that went down in English soccer history by winning the Double, the Premier League and the FA Cup—not forgetting the Community Shield at the beginning of the season against Manchester United. For a long time, I thought that was my favorite trophy, if only because it’s shaped like a plate. And on that plate you can put what you like: I piled it high with passion, with the discovery of a world I knew nothing about. London, England, Chelsea, Abramovich, Stamford Bridge, the Blues, the Queen. Another step in my life, another tile in this incredible mosaic, this splendid adventure. It began with that monstrosity sung by Yuri and it ended with Volare, that extraordinary poem set to music that I sang together with my team in front of the thousands of people who invaded Fulham Road, standing atop a double-decker bus, the day after we won the FA Cup final at Wembley against Portsmouth. A corner of the city had become our own immense universe. Untouchable, invulnerable.

It was all very nice, even if it was tough at the beginning. I didn’t speak English well, and so the club sent me to take an intensive course in the Netherlands (in secret; and, at the same time, it sent all its top managers to study Italian—I don’t know if that was a gesture of respect or because they knew I’d be a useless student). One of the reasons I fit into the locker room was thanks to the fundamental role played by Ray Wilkins, my number two and my friend, because it’s one thing to translate words—plenty of people can do that—but translating feelings is the gift of only a select few. Ray is one of those select few, always present, noble in spirit, a real blue-blood, Chelsea flows in his veins. His heart beats in two languages, and that helped me. Without him, we couldn’t have won a thing, and in particular we wouldn’t have started the year at supersonic speed. The