Daniel Zaccaro, I could kill

This article is published in number 2-3 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until January 19, 2022

Spring 2001, Milan, Niguarda area. Daniel is 10 years old, plays in the chicks of Inter and is the most important match. The door in front of him is empty, he pulls, but ends up outside. How out will it end too. “It is not from these details that you judge a player”, but for the father it is yet another opportunity to tell him “you are worth nothing, you will never achieve anything”.
Daniel Zaccaro, born and raised in Quarto Oggiaro, a north-western suburb, is now 28 years old. He was a bully, a hooligan and even a robber. He made a mistake and paid, ended up in jail. First at Beccaria. After in San Vittore. In between, the transfers for misconduct in the prisons of Catania, Bari and Bologna and the attempts in the communities of Varese and Arezzo. Then the meeting with the right people, and the will, slowly, to change. The diploma, the university. At the beginning of 2020 he became a Doctor of Education. At his graduation there were all: the prosecutor of the Juvenile Court who sentenced him; Fiorella, the retired teacher who made him study in prison; don Claudio, chaplain of Beccaria and founder of the Kayròs community, who put it back on its feet. «I have never felt myself neither an executioner nor a victim. I just tried in every way to emerge as the strongest », he explains, dosing his words well. His is a story of fall and rebirth, of second chances and the ability to seize them. Andrea Franzoso tells it in I was a bully. The true story of Daniel Zaccaro, in bookstores from 11 January for De Agostini. Their meeting is also a story. «We are opposites», explains Franzoso, while Daniel smiles, «I am a former bullied.
At school I was a nerd, Daniel would have slaughtered me. And when he did the robberies, I was an officer of the carabinieri, I could have arrested him ».

Instead who arrested her?
“They came home, looking for me. But I took it into account, it was part of the plan to become popular. I said to myself “This way my name will become even more established in the neighborhood” ».

The neighborhood is Quarto Oggiaro. What was it like growing up there?
«It all revolved around the popular building in Via Lopez, number 8. The first memories are linked to football. I used to come back from school, change clothes and play football ».

Do you still have the Inter kit?
«Today I support Juve, but at the time I was an Inter fan. The uniform was my pride. There was a great expectation on me. When one of Quarto Oggiaro goes to play for Inter, it becomes everyone’s dream. I felt too much pressure on me. Every time I touched the ball the perfect play was expected, if I was wrong it was just insults. I was happy when my father didn’t come to the matches ».