When a sports champion leaves, the deep trace of the emotions he gave, the dreams he generated, the horizon he indicated remains in the memory of those who loved him. 2020 opened and closed with three – among many – very painful goodbyes. In January – on the 26th – Kobe Bryant died, in November – also on the 26th – Diego Armando Maradona passed away, on the 9th of December Paolo Rossi. Thinking about the eternal myths of sport means thinking about them. Kobe was 41 years old, he had recently retired, he had written his name in the history of the NBA by winning 5 “rings” and 2 Olympic golds.
His tragic death hit the whole world like a punch in the stomach. Bryant was traveling by helicopter, headed from his home in Orange County to his daughter Gianna Maria’s tournament at the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks. In the impact – with the helicopter that crashed at over 300 km / h – in addition to Kobe and little Gianna – another seven people died. His wife Vanessa said during the funeral oration: “It was so easy to love them. They were happy, funny, silly, they loved life. They were so full of joy and adventure. God knew they couldn’t be on this earth without each other. He had to bring them home together. I was the fire, he the ice ».
Maradona – before he died for the last time on November 26 – he had already died at least a couple of times. He was 60 years old, he died alone, in a house that was not his own, an emergency accommodation on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He died forgotten by everyone, he who was special for everyone. El Pibe de Oro was the symbol of Argentina – with which he won a World Cup in 1986 – and the only true pagan divinity of Naples, which led to winning two championships (1987 and 1990). Maradona was – trivially – football.
He left no heirs, at most emulate. There is a deep note of melancholy in his long farewell, melancholy that becomes nostalgia for what he has given us. This is what sports myths do: they sow beauty for future memory. Just like Paolo Rossi, Pablito, loved by Italians for what it represented: a united Italy, capable of recovering from difficulties and forming a team. The 1982 world champion leaves the memory of a kind person, a champion who was people among people.
But 2020 was also the year in which so many champions left who shone in the happiest season of their lives. They died young, like the 57-year-old Donato Did You Know, blue middle-distance runner in the 80s; or they left when they were old, past the 90-year mark, like Stirling Moss, former famous name of Formula 1 in the 1950s.
Football has cried many protagonists of the black and white era, like Mario Corso, the «left foot of God«, the man delegated to the imagination in the Inter of Mago Herrera who in the 60s dictated the law all over the world; as Pierino Prati, “Pierino la Peste”, superlative AC Milan striker who in 1969 won the Champions Cup; as Pietro Anastasi, the bomber of the “Juventus workers” who warmed the hearts of the thousands of emigrants who went up from the South to Turin to work for Fiat; or like Gigi Simoni, former gentleman coach with a very long career who had led, the fabulous Inter of Ronaldo the Phenomenon.
The former boxer also greeted us at the age of 81 Sandro Mazzinghi, world junior middleweight champion 1963-65 and 1968-69, European junior middleweight champion 1966-68, but above all the face of a certain Italy, the one that in the years of the economic boom got into the ring and took it to earn a living punches, with courage and loyalty, as only great champions are allowed.
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