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And, all things considered, as long as we were doing the match reports for the Italian team, it really wasn’t a problem. The real problems began at the 1994 World Cup, in the United States. It was my job to prepare statistics on our opponents, but here’s the thing: often, it was just two or three days before a match when we found out who we’d be playing against. Once we did, I had to watch the videotapes of that team’s last three matches and, while I watched, do the match reports. And I had to do it all in a single night. But I learned a lot from it: I learned to focus on details. That went on until the Italy–Nigeria game in the quarterfinals. The usual routine, me in the bleachers annoying my neighbors: pass from Oliseh, Oliseh has a shot, Amunike picks up the ball … In the sixtieth minute, with Nigeria leading, 1–0, I started to have the nagging thought: what’s the best way to get back into Italy unobserved? How can we avoid a blizzard of overripe tomatoes at the airport? Maybe we can take a ferry from the island of Lampedusa. Or else, come south through Como. Whether to return from the north or the south—a difficult choice. I stopped doing the match report, but I hadn’t counted on Roberto Baggio: two goals, one in extra time, and Italy was ahead. More important, I hadn’t counted on Sacchi: “Carletto, where are my statistics?”

“Well, Arrigo, I only kept track until the sixtieth minute.”

“Why, may I ask?”

He didn’t understand. “Let’s say that I had other things to think about.”

And I wasn’t alone in that dilemma. I saw plenty of sports reporters cursing as they bent over to pick up their notes from underneath their desks—notes they had crumpled into a ball and discarded just a few minutes earlier. More or less the same thing I had done. Videotape in the machine, hit play, and review the last thirty minutes of Italy–Nigeria.

I have wonderful memories of that 1994 World Cup, despite the weather. It was brutally hot, the humidity was intolerable, and after dinner all I felt like doing was going to bed and passing out. But every night after dinner, Sacchi would say, “Shall we go take a walk?” No, please, not The Walk, anything but The Walk … But there was no arguing; he always won, with only one saving grace, as far as I was concerned. There were no trees, there were no flowers. And no one spoke Latin.

We would walk out of the hotel—me, Arrigo, Carmignani, the fitness coach Vincenzo Pincolini, and the Federation psychologist Viganò—and with that little group on the loose in America, anything could happen. Four zombies shuffling along listlessly, and Arrigo, who never ran out of zip and vim. He’d only faltered once, the year before, when the Federation had sent us to New York for a preliminary inspection. In Brooklyn, the Italian-American families had organized a celebration, with two guests of honor: him and me. We were given a magnificent welcome, consisting of just three words: “Please invite Toto Schillaci.”

And hello to you, too.

“He’s our paesano.”

That’s when I whispered into Sacchi’s ear: “Arrigo, let’s get out of here while we still can.”

But at the same time, they were screaming into his other ear: “Please invite Schillaci.”

Thanks, we’re crazy about you too. There’s the Sicilian Mafia, the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, the Neapolitan Camorra, and, let’s see, from Puglia, the Sacra Corona Unita: the gang, as they say, was all there.

“Arrigo, listen to me, let’s get out of here.”

“Yes, Carletto, you’re right. Let’s go, let’s go. It’s getting uncomfortable.”

“Quickly, Arrigo, before somebody fires a tommy gun.”

Good evening to one and all, thanks for the kind invitation.

“Please invite Schillaci.”

Oh, go fuck yourselves. Enough is enough.

I had fun in the States, too—intervals of fun between one game and another. Sacchi never stopped, he constantly talked about work, he never quit thinking about ways to improve the national team and the work he was doing. He taught me how to be a coach: how you plan the program, how you schedule the training sessions, how you manage different periods