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By Root 339 0

in Greece. Over the previous year and a half, we had been knocked off track in Istanbul and by Calciopoli, and we had barely managed to qualify for the Champions rounds, but I was already thinking of Athens. I revealed my thoughts on the eve of the away game against AEK Athens, while I was being interviewed at the Olympic Stadium: “I’m here to get acquainted with the field.” I remember that one or two older journalists—the kind that always think they know everything but really know less than the others—looked at me as if I was the village idiot. In fact, we struggled for a few more months after that. We gave up on the Italian championship almost immediately: being penalized eight points was just too much. In the Champions League, we were clumsy and not entertaining to watch. In the first round, we went up against AEK Athens, Anderlecht, and Lille. We got to the next level, but without generating a lot of excitement. In November and December, they were already giving us up for dead. Zeru tituli. Zeru tituli. The truth is that the engine was flooding: that summer, we hadn’t had time to train properly, and that was beginning to weigh us down, to affect our play on the field. We couldn’t wait for it to be Christmas so we could stop and recharge our batteries. But there was one piece of good news: Liverpool wasn’t giving up. It was continuing its march; it was still in the running for the Cup, just like us. Everything was going according to plan—plans established by fate, not by me. Obviously, my bench was wobbling and swaying as if it were high on ecstasy, and Galliani had his monkey wrench out and was already loosening bolts: the vice president as a working man.

And so on, until the mid-season break. At that point, the club decided to take all of us to train in Malta: “At least you can get into good physical and athletic shape.” There, we were reborn as a team; we started moving at a decent pace. We looked like a brand new squad, and, before long, people started talking about the notorious Malta Pact. So notorious, in fact, that it never existed. I don’t even know what it was supposed to be. The newspapers all wrote the same phrases: “The Pact, The Team’s Secret to Regaining Its Greatness.” Those articles aroused my curiosity. So I asked the players about them. I was worried that they might have cut me out of the loop: “You haven’t made some kind of pact without telling me, have you?” They didn’t get it; they figured I must have gone senile. The reality was much simpler: we were working well, better than we ever had in the previous months. The same thing was happening at Liverpool: another piece of good news. I was asking around, following the news, keeping up on how they were doing. Viva the Reds.

In the meantime, Rino Gattuso was losing his mind, and it was all Kakha Kaladze’s fault. Rino’s birthday is January 9. A few days before his birthday, at the beginning of a training session, Kakha made us all stop what we were doing. He asked if he could speak. “Coach, sorry, I have something to say. It’s very important.”

“Be my guest, Kakha …”

“It’s three days to Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

Maybe his gears were starting to slip, but we decided to act as if nothing had happened. That night, at dinner, the same thing: “Excuse me, boys, I have something to tell you all.”

“Go ahead, Kakha …”

“It’s two days and fourteen hours till Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

Our doctors gave us worried looks; they wanted to intervene, they were standing by with a straitjacket, cleaned and pressed, but we told them to hold off. The following morning, the same thing again. He raised his hand, and I let him go ahead: “Go ahead, Kakha …”

“It’s two days until Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

Poor Kaladze, Alzheimer’s is a terrible thing. And in such a young man, too. The team members started laughing, and Rino started to lose his temper. He felt he was a target of ridicule. The countdown went on—and on, and on. Until the night of January 8: “Boys, it’s just three hours until Rino Gattuso’s birthday.” Rino was having a hard time controlling himself at this