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By Root 361 0

in my life, produced the greatest array of chills, thrills, and sheer enjoyment—a living spectacle who put on an amazing show every single day. The best description of him that I ever heard came from José Altafini: “The way he used his foot, it was as if he were spreading butter on a slice of bread.” He had one shortcoming: he never scored all that many goals, he didn’t spend a lot of time in the penalty area. He seemed to be allergic to that section of the field, but he was an absolute master of all the others. Training was a thing he loved—a thing we all loved. He invented, and we watched openmouthed. I watched because that was my job; his fellow players watched because you can’t stop an artist. You just admire his work.

Edgar Davids was one of the first players I talked to in my capacity as coach of Juventus. I liked him a lot, and I told him so immediately: “I like the way you play, your aggression, your determination, your decisiveness. It’s clear that you never yield the initiative, that you’re a fighter, a battler.” I went on to catalog his physical endowments, his skills, and his natural gifts. He just stared at me and never said a word. More than stare, he glared at me, like I was a turd he’d accidentally stepped on. He listened, closemouthed. Finally, when I stopped talking, he enunciated a concept: “You know, I can play soccer, too.” True, though technique was never his strong suit. He loved to work hard, but he hated to run, so every day I had to invent specific new training exercises with the ball. It was like giving medicine to a child: if you just give him a spoonful, he’ll spit it out. If you hide it in a spoonful of Nutella, the odds are better. Before you could get Edgar to do something, you had to explain the reason why—which advantages and benefits it would bring to him. He was a perfectionist, and even a bit of a pain in the ass.

Alessandro Del Piero was less than happy when I first met him. When I got to Turin, he was trying to return to active play after the injury to his knee. He’d lost speed and reflexes, but I never lost confidence in him; he wasn’t an amazingly productive player, but he was, and remains, invaluable. I could never do without him. I always thought that, even a few years later, when Capello was training Juventus but largely overlooking the team’s captain. Ale, to use his nickname, is a born leader, and you can never overlook him. That’s all I have to say on that matter. That first year, I had him play when he was in conditions that would have convinced another coach to bench him (Capello, for instance, would have put him in the stands, or else sent him home, suspended, without dessert). I felt that I had to help him; he deserved it. From a professional point of view, he has always been serious and determined. In human terms, he is a rare and priceless individual. In terms of technique, he’s a thoroughbred. He has an essence that is hard to pin down, difficult to define in its beauty.

When I became head coach of Milan, I wanted to take him with me, and I even made a few tentative efforts to do so. But Del Piero is Juventus, and Juventus wasn’t for sale. The Avvocato used to call him Godot, because everyone always waited for him but he never got there. Ale hated that joke. It made him angry, but he couldn’t say so, because Gianni Agnelli was … Gianni Agnelli—an icon with an idea that was beginning to buzz around in his head. He wanted to bring Paolo Maldini over to Juventus. It was one of the rare occasions in which the Avvocato allowed himself to be swept away, putting a defender ahead of the rarer magic of the striker. Usually he was enchanted by goal-making artists. He wasn’t alone in that tendency. A short while later, I would become acquainted with a chairman who—if he could have had his way, excuse me, His way—would have fielded eleven strikers, with the proviso that he could always fire me if he thought the team was unbalanced.

The Avvocato’s dream—in that case, at least—never came true. Maybe that was why it was such a sweet dream for him. Maybe the times when he felt a