Amarcord Galliani, here is the ‘madness’ linked to Olimpia Milano
“Unforgettable was the return trip to Monza with the 500 azzurrina and the Olimpia flag.”
Soccer man. For more than 40 years. But also a great basketball fan, with a special fondness for his favorite team, Olimpia Milano. Adriano Galliani, the man who, together with Silvio Berlusconi, is revolutionizing Monza with a pharaonic buying campaign, told his story during a long interview with the weekly magazine Sportweek. Many anecdotes related to his shining career as a football manager, interspersed with a sweet memory related precisely to the ‘Scarpette Rosse’.
“As a manager I won everything you can win, from Serie C to the World Cup for clubs, passing through the B, the Scudetti and the Champions. I know from experience that Lega Pro, B and Serie A are three worlds, three different sports. That is why we have changed so much by focusing on a team with a full Italian identity,” Galliani began, speaking about Monza. “Never put a brake on ambition, but we have to take one step at a time. Now the goal would be to do a good championship and aim in the coming years to earn a place in Europe. Playing for a Cup.”
“The saddest monent of my career? The 2005 final with Liverpool in Istanbul. We dominated the whole game and paid for six minutes of blackout. Even now I wonder, without finding an answer, how we lost. And it is not true that in the locker room the boys celebrated after the first half. I was in that locker room and Carlo Ancelotti was urging everyone to be careful. Something absolutely abnormal happened, and I still don’t give myself peace.”
Finally, the tale of his greatest madness as a fan: “They would be many. I like to remember the jumping jacks I used to do when I was young to follow all my favorite teams. I had a 500 azzurrina with which I would drive to the stadium in Monza on Sundays at two-thirty and then, just after the game, I would dash to the Palalido to watch Riminucci and Pieri’s Simmenthal with Rubini on the bench. It was the Olimpia of the red shoes. The team that won the 1966 Champions Cup with Bradley. The final against Slavia Prague was played in Bologna and I was there. I remember as if it were now the trip back to Monza with the 500 azzurrina and the Olimpia flag,” he concludes excitedly.
