Domenico Criscito’s thrilling week
Thumbnail Picture: Genoa CFC Facebook/Tano Pecoraro Fotografia
Talented and skillful screenwriters from all over the world got us used to the most memorable sport’s vicissitudes the human mind can think of.
A generous dose of drama, a sparkle of romance, rivers of blood and sweat, and the heroes on the screen become the protagonists of poignant and profound moments of sport.
Surprisingly, however, the concrete experience of human life still provides us with the most unexpected coups de theatre, which bring us every weekend to turn on our devices and wait, hope, for that rush of emotions to flow into our bodies.
Nobody, neither the boldest screenwriter, could have scribbled down and presented to a producer the story of the week that Domenico “Mimmo” Criscito has just experienced.
Day 1: Saturday, May 30, 2022.
Criscito, Captain of Genoa, the oldest club in the Italian soccer history, actually in the heart of the struggle to avoid relegation from the Serie A, is about to climb the last couple of stairs that separate him and his teammates from the locker room to the green pitch of Luigi Ferraris stadium.
Genoa players warming up. Credits: Genoa CFC Facebook/Tano Pecoraro Fotografia
The structure, located in Genoa’s neighborhood of Marassi, is also the house of Sampdoria.
The two teams are about to write the umpteenth chapter of the story that sees them fighting on the field to gain the sea city’s supremacy.
The Luigi Ferraris is a living theatre. Its heart is boiling, and the two sides are showcasing colorful and poetics choreographies, framed by smoke bombs clouds and backed up by unceasing chants of joy and support.
Both teams are skating on thin ice.
Winning would be condemning the other to the serious risk of not being able to play in the Serie A in the next season.
However, there is more.
Winning would be condemning the other team’s supporters to a week (only a week? Months!) of jokes and often-not-so-much-friendly teasing.
An entire city has its eyes stuck on that green rectangle.
Things don’t seem to go the right way for Criscito and his Rossoblu teammates. With only a few minutes remaining in the game, the result is stuck on 1-0 for Sampdoria.
Minute 96. A penalty for Genoa.
A chance to keep the team’s hope alive and vivid.
Mimmo accurately lays the ball on the penalty spot. He is considered a specialist. In the past seasons, he has already taken responsibility for decisive penalties.
Credits: LaPresse
The ball is so metaphorically heavy that it could be compared to a medicine ball.
Mimmo’s glacial eyes dangle between the goal and the ball.
The goal and the ball.
The goal and the… he misses it.
Sampdoria’s keeper rases the ball as he would do with the Champions League trophy.
In front of Mimmo, the Gradinata Nord, the heart of Genoa’s supporters, a wall of condensed red and blue jerseys, fall silent.
Mimmo himself falls to his knees.
The captain becomes human. He starts crying as a baby would do, comforted by his teammates.
At this point in the story, our screenwriter would go on describing Mimmo’s week following the defeat in the “derby” against Sampdoria.
His obsessive going back to those fatal instants, to that crucial one in which he chose one direction instead of the other.
Neverending days, that bring Mimmo to the night of May 6.
Genoa’s chances of avoiding relegation are limited to a feeble hope. Beating the superstars’ team of Juventus.
The Rossoblu’s initial lineup. Credits: Genoa CFC Facebook/Tano Pecoraro Fotografia
Impossible.
Now, we know that in movies, the impossible becomes possible.
However, if, while considering the possible scenarios for his movie, our screenwriter was presented with the one of showing another last-minute penalty assigned to Genoa, with the result incredibly stuck on 1-1, and the possibility for Criscito to redeem himself, he would probably burst out laughing.
“That would be good… if I was writing a fantasy. This is real life man. Real life.”
That same real life, that exact real moment that Criscito experiences when Kelvin Yeboah, the Rossoblu’s striker, falls down to the ground in the penalty area, tripped by Italian defender Mattia De Sciglio.
The referee doesn’t hesitate. Not even an instant.
Penalty.
Criscito doesn’t hesitate as well.
He rushes toward the ball, gathers and lays it down.
That same penalty spot. That same wall of passion in front of him.
There is no time to think. To realize.
“You kick the penalty and that’s the end of the game!” the referee declares. “No rebound of any kind.”
The cameras indulge for a second on the image of Criscito’s wife, Pamela.
Her hands almost covering her petrified eyes. A nervous walking back and forth.
The referee blows.
Mimmo’s glacial eyes dangle between the goal and the ball.
The goal. The ball.
The goal. The… he scores.
Criscito showing the “attributes”. Credits: Genoa CFC Facebook/Tano Pecoraro Fotografia
What happens next is a hymn to the wildest jubilation.
A swarm of red and blue players rushes toward their Captain, who looks up at his wife just a second before being absorbed by his teammates.
The essence of soccer. The final image of the perfect movie.
Credits: Genoa CFC Facebook/Tano Pecoraro Fotografia
Our screenwriter is on his way to next year’s Oscar. There is no doubt about that.