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Friday, May 19, 2006

Moggi, you should have tried Skype!

When I was child, my grand-father took me for the first time to the San Siro Stadium. It was 1979 and I had the chance to watch one of the last Soccer games during a season when Inter won the Scudetto. The opponents were Inter and Pescara and my favorite team won 2 by 0. Inter's coach was Eugenio Bersellini, who became during his career the Football coach of the Libian national team.
I was in the second grade Elementary School.

At that time, the main argument for discussion with my classmates was about Juventus and its "cheating" style. As background for non Italian reader, the Agnelli family owned not only Fiat, the Italian automaker, but also Juventus (by the way, now Juventus is listed in the Italian stock exchange, but it is still partly owned by Fiat). Once upon the time, there was rumors, many rumors, that referees got cars in exchange for favourable "treatments" during soccer games. Rumors, only rumors.

Wikipedia defines cheating as the act "employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others." I was too young to define the meaning of "cheating", Internet was not commonly available. In the last few days, after 25 years, I got an impressive example of what cheating signifies. Juventus, or some Juventus managers have adopted very "unconventional" behaviour to favor their team during the last year season.
A great comment about this story is on the Economist website, where the Magazine talks about (a new) Italian Scandal, now called "The Dirty feet".

The main character of this scandal is by far the General Manager of Juventus Soccer team, Mr. Moggi. Moggi has always been considered one of the most controversial soccer manager of the last twenty years, earning the nickname of "Lucky Luciano". In the past, he was also called Mr. Bat («Paletta») since he has been a stationmaster for 19 years, before moving to the Soccer world.

There are so many people talking about him in the last few days, that it is hard for me to say something different and creative. However, the true key (and funny) question of this story has been suggested during one of the last soccer games: why Mr. Moggi had not tried Skype, see below (Source Antijuve website).
My answer is crystal clear: had Mr. Moggi worked for some technology or Telecom companies in Italy, he would have used Skype, avoided wire-tapping and Juventus supporter would have been happy with their 29th title («Scudetto»).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I will not take it as a surprise if Moggi gets a brain tumor. About 400 phone calls a day! In the 1960's Yukio Mishima scolded Japanese industry managers and wrote that: "Making 120 phone calls a day is not enough to be called a man of action". What about 400? Is Moggi a man of action?
Anyway, in my spare time I built a lenspage on squidoo, entirely devoted to this football scandal, with daily updates, background info, rss feeds, videos etc. All in English.
It's here:
http://www.squidoo.com/italiansoccer

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