- 3 years ago
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00:00 It's going pretty well, but we have to wait, we have to take care of it.
00:04 Do you want to play?
00:06 Yes, I want to play, but not for everyone. I have to be as safe as possible.
00:12 A few words, but that was the burden of an entire people, the people of Rosso Nero.
00:17 Like before a market crash, when everyone says "shall we take it or not?"
00:21 Thousands and thousands of fans were not satisfied that day, with that "let's see".
00:27 They wanted to know, that and only that, Ruud Gullit, can he play against the Red Star or not?
00:34 You heard the answer, yes, I want to play, but not for everyone.
00:38 I mean, not at all costs.
00:40 Words spoken the morning after the game suspended for fog.
00:44 The one that the Red Star had already won, but beware, without reaching the triple final whistle.
00:51 A victory without looking at the future, a victory swallowed by the fog.
00:57 We have to play again the next day.
00:59 Words spoken at the Intercontinental, those of Gullit.
01:03 The most famous hotel in Belgrade, which in the following years would have become
01:07 also the headquarters of the Tiger Arcan.
01:10 The hotel where the "Lord of the Serbian War" would have found death.
01:16 In January 2000, in fact, in the hall, some hitmen, it is said, sent by the same Serbian president Milosevic,
01:23 with whom the relations had gradually deteriorated, hit the Tiger and his escort.
01:30 In that great football and life novel, which was the transfer of Milan to Belgrade,
01:36 in the 1988-1989 Champions League, Milan then had to deal with the remains of the fog.
01:44 The remains of a declared defeat in a game in which nothing worked,
01:49 in a game that turned into the hope of the next day.
01:53 When by now nothing was seen and understood on the 1-0 for the Red Star,
01:57 but without the minimum conditions to go on playing,
02:00 there was in fact the expulsion of Pietro Paolo Virdis,
02:03 who, in addition to the disqualification for ammunition, remedied by Carlo Ancelotti,
02:07 posed big training problems for Arrigo Sacchi,
02:10 who had to try at all costs to recover at least him, at least Gullit.
02:16 The organization of Fininvest could do nothing but get on the bike,
02:20 taking with a private flight the born Amsterdam Ted Troost,
02:25 Rud's personal physiotherapist, what today would be called "mental coach".
02:30 The pre-match rehearsal takes place in the corridors on the tenth floor of the Intercontinental Hotel,
02:37 under the watchful eye of Arrigo Sacchi.
02:40 The answer is that the black tulip will leave the bench ready to enter the final if necessary,
02:46 while the starting line-up is played by Graziano Mannari.
02:50 By the way, not even Virdis noticed that expulsion.
02:53 Do you realize that we came from a draw,
02:55 we played at home 1-1 with a goal of mine,
02:57 in a scoring game, they were on the ground for a long time.
03:02 In short, a very, very nervous game.
03:05 We went to play there and, with a great team at home,
03:09 100,000 spectators, they went ahead.
03:12 Luckily, the fog came down.
03:15 Before that, however, the referee threw me out for a shoulder contrast,
03:20 of which I still did not understand the motivation.
03:24 In fact, then Arrigo tells him that he found me in the expulsions,
03:27 he did not even notice, given the fog that they had thrown me out.
03:32 Well, I think that's where it all came from, from this great difficulty.
03:36 I realize, however, that it must also be said that it was a Champions League cup that was worth two,
03:41 because in other subsequent games we had canceled goals without motivation,
03:47 with balls beyond the line of one meter and a pass.
03:50 So it was a complicated year.
03:53 After all, the president wanted to create this super league,
03:57 and someone was not doing well.
04:00 In short, Pietro Paolo, at least he knew that the next day he would not have played.
04:05 But the others?
04:07 How could you spend a night like that sleeping?
04:11 Milan was surrounded.
04:13 There was the police, the Serbian militia around the hotel.
04:18 The next day, Milan would have recovered once again, full load.
04:22 And that is the great fan of the Serbian curve,
04:25 guided by Zeljko Raznatović, the "Arcane Tiger",
04:29 the head of the Ultras of the Red Star, the "Dellie", the heroes in the Serbian language.
04:34 And then on the field there would still be the very strong Stojković and Savicevic,
04:38 not to mention him, the German referee Pauli,
04:41 who after the fog suspension,
04:43 had deceived the crowd into a famous nightclub of the city,
04:46 together with some beauties of Belgrade.
04:49 "It is the night of thoughts and loves", recites a famous musical text,
04:53 but for a group of Red Star champions in Belgrade,
04:56 it was the night of thoughts and sighs.
04:59 The night of thoughts and doubts.
05:01 The night of thoughts and torments.
05:04 How will we do?
05:06 We must obtain the qualification of our dreams with a decimated formation,
05:10 against a team that we have not even managed to beat completely.
05:13 He opens the cracks of the tension and the story, Giovanni Galle.
05:18 We slept little.
05:20 The adrenaline of the match just finished,
05:25 but immediately the thought went to the next day's game.
05:30 We returned to the hotel not late,
05:34 we ate something,
05:36 then you don't go to bed immediately,
05:39 maybe you go to the room with some companions,
05:42 you start talking,
05:43 and I remember this anecdote,
05:45 we were in the room with Baresi, Tassotti and Ancellotti,
05:50 we were chatting,
05:52 and that coach knocked on the door of Rigosacchi,
05:56 he came in and looked at us,
05:59 as he usually does,
06:02 to understand our mood,
06:05 he asked us,
06:09 what we have to do tomorrow to win.
06:12 I must tell you that the answer of all of us was the same,
06:17 we have to play as we know,
06:22 we have to play as we know.
06:24 We arrived here playing a wonderful football,
06:28 last year in the Scudetto victory,
06:31 and all the preseason games,
06:35 I remember we played with PSV in Dove,
06:38 we played in Manchester,
06:39 a series of games where we had excellent results,
06:44 we played a beautiful football,
06:46 and that was the answer,
06:48 probably that was the Tisana for Rigosacchi,
06:53 he was a football hypochondriac,
06:56 he had worries,
06:58 he probably went to bed and managed to sleep for half an hour.
07:03 To avoid the fog,
07:04 the match was played at 3 pm in a stadium,
07:06 if possible,
07:07 even more crowded,
07:09 the gates were left open,
07:11 and there were more than 100,000 people on the stands.
07:14 In that infernal bubble, however,
07:17 in the rare moments of silence,
07:19 you can hear the voices of the few Red-Blacks left.
07:22 And then that scream of love that shakes the TV in Italy,
07:26 a "goffa" of Vasiljevic,
07:28 seems to give the advantage to the Red-Blacks,
07:30 already at the beginning of the match,
07:32 but the referee does not realize
07:34 how far the ball has covered the goal line.
07:38 It's at least a meter and a half inside,
07:40 yet he does not see.
07:42 At a certain point, however,
07:43 not even the German referee Pauli
07:45 on a precise head shot of Van Basten can intervene.
07:48 For the first time in the three matches,
07:50 the Red-Blacks are in goal,
07:51 first, they are in advantage.
07:53 But it was not over,
07:55 and it could not be over.
07:56 The Red Star draws immediately afterwards,
07:58 just as Milan did in San Siro in the first leg.
08:01 The Red Star was strong,
08:02 and does a manual action,
08:04 a millimeter throw of Savicevic for Stoikovic
08:07 and a big hit under the crossbar.
08:09 One to one.
08:11 An endless romance.
08:12 When the teams think about rest,
08:14 an episode, to put it mildly,
08:16 dramatic, sees the protagonist,
08:17 Roberto Donadoni, as Giovanni Galli recalls.
08:20 Donadoni's accident, the image, terrible.
08:23 Terrible because I had already lived,
08:26 I see, an experience like this,
08:29 with the accident, if you remember,
08:31 between Antonioni and Martina,
08:34 the goalkeeper of Genoa.
08:36 From the fall to the ground,
08:38 Roberto immediately gave me the impression
08:40 that he had fainted.
08:42 He does not put his hands here
08:44 to safeguard the descent to the ground.
08:46 He just falls.
08:47 As he was hit,
08:50 he fainted immediately.
08:52 I had that thing in my eyes,
08:54 in fact, I get close to many of my teammates
08:57 because I was aware that at that moment
08:59 the television was broadcasting that image
09:03 and seeing teammates
09:05 putting their hands in their hair,
09:07 I tried to warn them and tell them,
09:10 "It's nothing,
09:11 let's not give these messages
09:15 of the gravity of what had happened".
09:19 An incredible story,
09:21 that of Giovanni Galli,
09:22 but even more abnormal
09:23 was what had happened the night before.
09:25 A few years ago,
09:27 the then manager Paolo Taveggia
09:30 said that when there was nothing left for fog
09:33 and he protested,
09:34 the goalkeeper told him to sit down.
09:36 But he, Paolo Taveggia,
09:37 had decided to continue to break the boxes
09:40 until at a certain point
09:42 Paoli, the referee of the game,
09:44 whistled three times.
09:46 The game was suspended.
09:47 It was necessary to wait 45 minutes
09:50 waiting to see if the fog
09:51 would clear from the field.
09:53 But the team was already under the shower
09:56 with the shirts thrown on the ground.
09:58 The players had not understood
10:00 that the game was suspended and not resumed.
10:03 Taveggia was forced to invent
10:05 a typical Italian scene,
10:07 making a desperate scene,
10:09 telling Paoli how his career
10:11 had been ruined
10:13 because the players of Milan
10:14 were already under the shower
10:16 because of the misunderstanding.
10:17 Paoli opened the window of his dressing room,
10:20 looked outside and said
10:21 a few but fundamental words,
10:23 "We play tomorrow at 3 p.m."
10:25 That was the precise moment
10:26 when everything started again.
10:28 From the provino of Gullit,
10:29 to the first goal cancelled,
10:30 to Van Basten's goal,
10:31 to the draw of the Red Star,
10:32 to Donadoni's drama,
10:33 to the final penalties.
10:35 Yes, the penalties.
10:36 Especially one,
10:37 the decisive and liberating penalty
10:39 of Frankie Reichardt.
10:40 All the public,
10:44 all the 120,000 fans
10:46 were whistling that penalty.
10:49 The whole stadium was silent
10:52 because that penalty
10:53 would have determined the end.
10:55 In fact, they didn't kick the fifth penalty.
10:59 It was really an odyssey,
11:02 this match that had no end.
11:06 It had no end.
11:08 Here, the last penalty,
11:10 that of Frank,
11:11 freed us from a nightmare
11:14 because it was really...
11:16 Being in Belgrade
11:17 had become a nightmare for us.
11:19 As Giovanni Galli says,
11:21 the penalty finally brought
11:23 the final result.
11:24 3-5 in the final.
11:26 An unreal and deafening silence in the stadium.
11:29 Only a handful of men
11:30 went crazy in the guest sector.
11:32 It was the beginning of everything,
11:33 a sort of catharsis,
11:35 of football regeneration.
11:37 Because there would have been
11:38 no Barcelona final without Belgrade.
11:40 There would have been no paradise without hell.
11:43 And the day after,
11:44 on the return flight to Milan,
11:45 Arrigo Sacchi, the visionary,
11:47 had already guessed,
11:48 understood and imagined all this.
11:50 This match, at least me,
11:52 but I think my players too,
11:53 we will always remember.
11:55 And we will remember it
11:56 like a night of terror.
11:59 Really.
12:00 We were not able to come up with
12:03 this team so scurvy,
12:06 where their coach,
12:07 who was then exonerated,
12:08 in my opinion,
12:09 understood everything.
12:11 He understood what
12:12 the others did not understand.
12:14 That is, everyone tried to play with him.
12:18 He tried not to play.
12:20 Arrigo spoke of a game,
12:21 but Belgrade was a story
12:22 of spirit and life,
12:23 of men and sport,
12:24 as it would have happened
12:25 more than 30 years later,
12:26 to the guys of Rio Ave.
12:29 Here, Rio Ave.
12:31 The long hand of the fog of Belgrade
12:33 had arrived there too.
12:35 The same hug of everyone
12:36 for one during the penalties.
12:38 The same desire to hug.
12:40 The same desire to be in Milan,
12:42 in Belgrade, as in Rio Ave.
12:45 The same desire to be in Milan,
12:47 in Belgrade, as in Rio Ave.
12:50 (wind blowing)
12:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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