Gravina’s letter to Vialli: “You made a group of normal people exceptional”

Two days after the death of Gianluca Vialli, the president of the FIGC Gabriele Gravina entrusts his personal memory of the blue monument to a letter.

after all it’s just a matter of hugs. The long and warm embrace of the fans and all football fans that has accompanied your exceptional career as a footballer. The unbreakable embrace that binds you to the people who have had the good fortune to know you closely and who love you. The unexpected hug we exchanged in the first phone call in which you accepted the role of head of delegation of the national team with enthusiasm, but also with the modesty that characterized your victorious experience as a federal manager. The intense embrace, crying, smile and experience that you exchanged with Roberto in a moment of collective ecstasy, yet so intimate and private.

And even now, in the deep pain in which we have abandoned ourselves for the news that we never wanted to receive, we of the Azzurra family hold each other in a big hug, physical and virtual, to try to find comfort and try to alleviate the suffering of detachment from someone so special.

Because this is precisely the point, dear Gianluca, you are the special person who has contributed to making a group of normal people exceptional. It was your elegant charisma, together with your will to live and to win that you instilled in everyone, that made the Azzurri, your Azzurri, European Champions.

At Wembley, Italy made history also and above all thanks to your ability to make the people around you better with reflections that are never trivial, with curious questions and whispered advice. A unique contribution and heritage both from a human and professional point of view. This is why the image that I can’t get out of my mind is much more than a memory, it’s a legacy that survives the pain. It’s the hug with which the Italian fans in London greeted you after the European triumph in July 2021. Thousands of arms that have surrounded you once again and never wanted to let you go. Like today. Have a good trip