00:00 I think I bought a Cafu because in the propositive phase, the European champion Milan didn't give much space in the game,
00:15 also because if I played right back there was something that didn't work,
00:20 and consequently we needed someone who pushed a lot more,
00:25 so the choice of Cafu was automatic, given what Cafu gave in the propositive phase.
00:33 Then, in reality, the thing that made me laugh a bit,
00:38 is that at a certain point Cafu pushed so much that in the year of the Scudetto,
00:43 especially in the last games, and in particular the Scudetto against Roma at San Siro,
00:49 I played practically third left, but it was almost a three-man defense,
00:55 because Cafu pushed a lot, but let's say that behind he was a little less concerned.
01:02 So in 2004 the Scudetto, Cafu was certainly one of the great successes in the purchases of Gagliani and Berlusconi.
01:12 Alessandro Costacurta from Orago, a province in Varese, who contextualizes Marcos Cafu from San Paolo del Brasile, Milan's thing.
01:20 Milan, who was a European champion in charge, had just played the Intercontinental in the rigors at Yokohama,
01:26 and was in full Scudetto fight, with Roma, coached by Fabio Capello.
01:30 But at San Siro, for the last game before Christmas, there were only 53,000 spectators.
01:37 It worked like this with the Milan of the wonderful, a very strong team and a band of talent on the field,
01:44 spectators not really good mouth on the stands.
01:48 We are Milan and we have the Palatofino, a strong team anyway, I come to the stadium when I can, maybe when it is necessary.
01:55 It is also in that climate that the last red-black performance of an important year in Milan history is consumed and melted,
02:02 2003, the year of the Champions League won in Manchester and the Coppa Italia won against Totti and Cassano.
02:09 At San Siro there is the Udinese, the team of destiny for Marcos Cafu.
02:14 Against the Friulani, the Brazilian "littorina", we called it that way, I and the Galliani, whispers to the podcast "The Red-Black Tales of Arie Dobraida".
02:23 He scored his first goal with the Milan shirt, on December 21, 2003, Cafu.
02:28 And to look well also the last, in a Milan-Udinese 4-1 of May 2008, in which both the "Pendolino" and the "Colibri" Serginho
02:36 said goodbye to San Siro and football.
02:39 But if that day Serginho cried, Cafu instead smiled.
02:44 He has always only been able to smile, Marcos Cafu, as a convinced Brazilian,
02:50 as presented by the journalist and director Andrea Vianello, he remembers well.
02:55 Given that I am a Brazilian, and therefore every Brazilian player who arrives in Milan, I am happy.
03:02 I must say that I miss the Brazilians a little now.
03:06 At that time, instead, in that year, the arrival of Cafu was a bit perplexing.
03:12 Why? Because Roma let him go.
03:16 The player was certainly, let's say, at the end, at least it seemed, of a wonderful career.
03:25 And it seemed to me a bit, let's say, a less winning operation than the ones we have done for many years.
03:33 Instead, as always, football amazes, and above all, the champions like him amaze.
03:41 Because Pendolino, as he was called here in Rome, did Rome-Milan.
03:48 And he became stronger than before.
03:52 In Rome he won the Scudetto from us and won another one.
03:56 Above all, he also made us win the cup, the finals.
04:00 In short, Cafu, five years out of time, maximum.
04:07 But the great time of the champions.
04:10 A great relationship with the father of time, that of Marco Scafu.
04:14 One to whom it was natural to rely on the touch of the clock and the flow of the calendar.
04:19 One that the cycles and the eras knew how to shake them, shake them, take them by the hand, calmly and without hurry.
04:27 And it happened also in that Milan-Udinese of December 21, 2003.
04:31 Exactly a week after the strict discord of Yokohama in Cima,
04:35 at the World Cup against the usual opponents of Boca Juniors.
04:39 In that gray pre-Christmas afternoon, Milan was 2-0 down against the Bianconeri coached by Luciano Spalletti.
04:46 But even if 20 minutes were missing at the end, you could still try to flirt with time.
04:51 With what in some cases becomes the inevitable, the inexorable ticketing of the clock.
04:57 Goal by Cafu and short distances. Milan tries until the end.
05:01 Without luck, without equalizing, but in the meantime, good Marcos, began with that goal to sharpen his pride.
05:09 To prepare for the Scudetto challenge on January 6, which he and his teammates would have won at the re-take at the Olympics against Rome di Capello.
05:18 "But where do you want to go with Cafu and Pancaro?" they said in the capital during the Christmas holidays.
05:24 Whispers and friendships made before going on the field.
05:28 Because then it is precisely on the field that certain DNAs form the right alignment, the virtuous chain of victory.
05:36 And it is precisely against certain predictions that the class and the smile know how to exalt themselves and find their right path.
05:44 Just as happened in Rome in favor of Milan on January 6, 2004.
05:49 But also, attention, as it had always happened in Japan and always in the Intercontinental Final of Tokyo in December 1993, ten years earlier.
06:00 Even if in that case, in Milan's favor, it is in favor of the Brazilians of San Paolo.
06:05 Also in that case, Cafu and his football managed to have the best of the predictions.
06:11 As well remember, Filippo Galli.
06:13 "I remember seeing Cafu for the first time in 1993 when we lost the Intercontinental Cup final in Tokyo against San Paolo.
06:23 He was the third of this team, third right.
06:26 I, who was on the bench in that game, saw him for a while, floundering in front like a train.
06:33 And then, ten years later, when he arrived in Milan, it was really like finding a player that I had seen really strong.
06:46 And I wondered if after ten years he could still be such a strong and decisive player.
06:53 Well, I would say that it was.
06:56 I would say that especially Gagliani, but in particular Tassotti, when they said that he changed his life in Milan, they are perfectly right.
07:06 Because in Milan, Cafu really managed to give a mark like only Mauro had been able to do previously. "
07:13 Just like that, Marcos Cafu had arrived in Milan ten years after that San Paolo-Milan, the World Cup final in which the Rossoneri decided not to sign Dejan Sabicevic.
07:23 Because, despite the disqualification with the Red Star, Fabio Cappello had already prepared the team, without the Montenegrin genius.
07:34 Ten years later, Cafu arrived in Milan, accompanied by the idea that the most of his career had already given and done.
07:43 As they say in cases like this, cooked and eaten.
07:46 Cafu joined Milanello in a team that, in the season of the European season, in triumph at Old Trafford in the Champions League final against Juventus,
07:54 had alternated in the role of right back before Dario Simic, then Roque Junior and finally, just in the final, Alessandro Billy Costa Curta.
08:05 We were looking for someone to change our life in that role and on those "zolle", the thought, in time, of the company.
08:12 And Cafu did it. He changed it, for the better, in everything and for everything.
08:17 There are cases like that of Cafu, in which to charge you do not need to tighten your fists or grit your teeth.
08:23 It is not necessary to get rid of the concentration or the seduces from the mental coach.
08:28 The smile has its energy, its strength, it knows how to distinguish and disarm, exactly in the sense in which it is taken from the historical journalist Rossonero, Luca Serafini.
08:40 The first thing that comes to mind of the "Pendolino" Cafu, who arrived in Milan from Rome at 33 years old,
08:47 is the smile, the happiness, the joy, the carefree of an extraordinary athlete who had excited the Roma fans,
08:57 but above all the Brazilian one, being the first team of presence with the national team Verde Oro.
09:03 He still had enthusiasm, passion and an incredible momentum. He knew how to convey carelessness,
09:11 which is an important factor in a football team that fights for great goals, even in the most complicated and difficult moments.
09:19 You looked at Cafu and reassured yourself. His way of running, his way of celebrating, his way of playing,
09:26 was all very Brazilian, but the Brazilian of the happy part, of the serene part.
09:33 Serenity is a noun that I like to associate and attribute to him, beyond his great human, technical and athletic gifts.
09:42 Of course, because he would have played other very important seasons in Milan, despite the anagraph.
09:49 Six seasons in Rome with 218 games and 6 goals, 5 seasons in Milan with 166 games and 4 goals.
09:57 Average and excellent, which is good. He still had time and smiles, Marco Scafu.
10:04 And if two of the four goals came against Udinese, there was a reason.
10:08 The first, to help Milan react after a world defeat to the penalties.
10:13 The last, to console all San Siro, for a Champions League qualification lost to the last tuffo compared to Fiorentina.
10:20 But also to console the fans, for his departure, his "Hello everyone", his greeting to a stadium that had loved both him and Serginho.
10:29 Milan had had Maldini and Tassotti, unbeatable and unbeatable, but Marcos and Sergio were worthy successors.
10:36 Leaving the testimony to those with his means and his pride, he would have kept the Red-Black stripes alive in the years to come.
10:43 Odo and Jankulovski first, Abate and Antonini later, Davide Calabria and Teo Hernandez for the victory of the Scudetto of 2022.
10:51 Scafu remains satisfied with having done exactly like him, as his Red-Black coach Carlo Ancelotti.
10:58 Both the pendulum and Carletto had been judged substantially finished in Rome,
11:02 almost like postcards from which it is better to get rid of it first.
11:06 What happened next, however, everyone knows and the story certifies it, as the editorialist and opinionist Franco Ordine remembers.
11:15 Scafu was a dry lie to the initial judgments and slander of the press and the fans.
11:26 He was considered a postcard that left Rome and arrived in Milanello.
11:32 It was exactly the opposite.
11:34 What was it for that Milan of Ancelotti, Scafu?
11:39 It was like bringing a carriage from the carnival of Rio into the austere walls of Milanello.
11:50 Scafu brought lightness, joy, a smile, the pleasure of playing football.
12:01 Above all, he brought a touch of great class and style that seemed unattainable,
12:12 given the thickness and size of his predecessor, Mauro Tassotti.
