Who was Sister Paola and how it entered our imagination

In that fun and innovative theater of the masks that was Those that football (conceived in 1993 in Rai, conducted in the best years by Fabio Fazio), the figure of Sister Paola stood out for the humanity and simplicity with which she cheered for her heart team, the Lazio. Although they are at least incongruous at least at the beginning – A nun had never been seen in a sports program – In the end he delivered an unpublished character to viewers (he was a guest of the football lounge from 1993 to 2005) and for this reason even more appreciated and destined to have, even today, more than thirty years later, the right of citizenship in the imagination of the Italians.

Sister Paola, Calabrian originally from Roccella Jonica, left in these hours, at 77 years old, after a long illness. Had arrived in young Rome, it belonged to the Congregation of the Franciscan School Sisters of Christ the Kinghe was a long time as a teacher at the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the Farnesina and for decades he witnessed people victims of violence. In 1998 he founded the non -profit organization So.Spe (solidarity and hope), still active today. But to his religious path, Sister Paola intertwined the television one. In the second half of the 90s it was a sort of superstar. The placid but firm laying, the smile to interspersing every speech, the indulgence he tried to sow, when – for example – in the study of Those that football Battibecchi were staged between opposite factions.

Together with other characters – just mention here Hymphadowing of Juventus fans Or the inevitable Teo Teocoli with his imitations to Miss Carlo/Anna Marchesini who “since I know Cecata” – Sister Paola had managed to find in the mixing between the passion for football and the television variety a perfect balance.

The characters of Those that football They presided over Sunday afternoon, accompanying millions of Italians (with peaks of 7 million in the late 90s) in the varied story of the games. That they were not seen, but who “read” in the looks, in the grimaces, in the moments where Sister Paola and the others rejoiced for a goal scored or darkened because their team had gone to disadvantage. They did it by looking carefully a tiny monitor, guarding a truth that would then have been offered – for example – with the calm and never banal words of Sister Paola, with her affable ways, with that kind pose that distinguished her. The truth, to think about it today, is that Sister Paola, perhaps compared to other colleagues who pushed the accelerator to please the viewers, did not recite. He limited himself to carrying himself on stage. This made it special.