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By Root 383 0

were overthinking it all. And right before you’re about to kick from the penalty mark, that’s never a good attitude to have. At that point, I was practically certain we were done for. And to think that the designated penalty kickers, unlike what had happened at Manchester against Juventus, were our good ones: Serginho, Pirlo, Tomasson, Kaká, and Shevchenko. When I saw Dudek dancing before each one of our penalty kicks to try to shake our concentration, I was reminded of the final that we, Roma, lost to Liverpool in a penalty shootout. There, too, Grobbelaar, on the goal line, had done a creditable imitation of a hysterical belly dancer. One no better than the other, him and Dudek. In the locker room after the game, I had very little to say: “In moral terms, we won that game. If we do our best, someday we’ll have this opportunity again …”

I never watched that match again, and I never will. Not so much because of the pain, but simply because there is no point to it. I feel no need to watch it again. Now I think of the disaster of Istanbul as a loss like any other. My depression has lifted. Of all the players, Crespo is probably the one who took it the hardest; he’d never won a European Cup, and that evening in Turkey he thought his time had come—a feeling that only grew during the game, after he scored not one but two goals. For his effort and his gifts, he really deserved to go home with a major piece of recognition. Even today, he lives with the regret that he was unable to hoist that Champions League cup; he deserved it more than all the others.

Crespo had begun that season as a cadaver, and he ended it as a hero. He had improved vastly, and all credit was due to him. When we acquired him in the summer from Chelsea, he was another man: ungainly, slow, depressed, he no longer seemed like a soccer player at all. (I still don’t know what they did to him.) He couldn’t even score; he didn’t get his first goal until November, in the Italian Cup games. He worked like crazy to recover, and, in the end, he succeeded. It was the old Crespo again, the one I’d known from my time at Parma. My prize student, my good close friend.

One step down, in the ranks of despair, was Gattuso, who was ready to leave A. C. Milan after the match against Liverpool. Some kind of psychic sinkhole had opened up inside him, sucking him down into darkness.

Then, all together, we came to a conclusion, even though it took us some time: we would return in triumph precisely because of that crushing defeat. Just when that would be, we still couldn’t say. We couldn’t possibly know. First, we had to gather up all the shattered pieces of us, ourselves, and our team, and reassemble them. It was the most complicated puzzle I ever faced. It was in that period that I went back to find the thesis I had written for my master’s degree at Coverciano to become a fully accredited, first-class soccer coach. I flipped through the pages, going directly to the chapter on psychology:

… one outcome of this lack of results is that the player begins to feel a waning enthusiasm, with the risk of calling into question the effectiveness of the work that he is being asked to do. The coach—with the support of the club, of course—must have faith in his ideas, must keep from wavering, must remain confident in his convictions, but, above all, must be aware that he has a group of players that is following him and approves his choices and decisions. If you are sure that the group is on your side, then that is the time to insist on the work that must be done.

Another one:

… you must take care to avoid creating anxiety in the pursuit of results at all costs; this is harmful and counterproductive, if you wish to obtain a high level of performance. If the group manages to overcome this series of difficulties, then it becomes more cohesive and much more powerful. At that time, a coach knows that he can count totally on players who are united, highly motivated, and determined. When you can count on a group of people with these characteristics, the work will be less tiresome and the results