“Let’s hear from you later.”
When thoughts about existence are repeated, the night. They strike the conscience, reveal the flashes of day, raise doubts that lead to deep reflections. For those who, like us, live off football, it’s only natural that we bring our passions into conversations about life.
I like to put football and values ​​side by side, I think it is inevitable, when football intertwines with life. “Make it a life, sleep at night” an important journalist told me and “is still in vogue.”
To stay awake, you may need to follow South American football. It has become an enjoyable habit for me. This helps if you want to maintain an open and productive dialogue with Roberto de Zerbe.
“Let’s feel I’m late, I’m awake.”

Speaking of Bielsa
I asked for an interview with Robbie to talk about Bielsa and a book I was writing about Loco and it was, of course, after midnight. Football ideas mixed with life.
“It’s something I love about Loco – De Zerbe told me – the fact that football always brings back to life, to the street, to the people… It’s something that makes me go to seventh heaven. Because he loves football so much that he manages to find a constant parallel with life daily. He finds it clearly, and he convinces you of everything. Those who love their work, like him, like me, like you, inspire their work for life and vice versa. “
I remembered this dialogue in this period, when, after the Ukrainian experience (and today is his first success with Shakhtar, he won the Super Cup against Dynamo Kyiv, and played football in pure Dezerbian style), the Brescia coach found that he was considering a new offers.
“De Zerbe is not good for teams to get into running, football needs time,” I read in some newspaper. The press that obviously knows little about Roberto.
“Someone – always said to me that night, with the clock becoming less and less a factor – sees football by the numbers, 442, 343 … There are those who work and express themselves through their work. There are those who speculate and there are those who study. Who work and who He bets and believes in the ring. I believe in evolution, in strategy. In business, I believe above all in daily work, and therefore I get close to matches and with blood in my eyes, I try to convey my ferocity to the players.”

Perfect for getting into running
I would say perfect then to get into the race. But this does not surprise me, because De Zerbi is said in cliches, often opposed by a blind critic who cannot accept the diversity of his proposals, in the slowly changing world of Italian football. Many foreign professionals, during the Sassuolo years, asked me about ideas and visions about football, which seemed very different to them…
So it is not surprising that after the Kyiv experience, today an excellent team, the best league in the world by gap, is looking for him. And to persuade him, evident by arguments, to promise a constant exchange of views on football. On yesterday’s show, but also in some of the rumors circulating in recent days, many professionals noted that in addition to the coach and his fun football, as we all know after observing Sassuolo closely, the man was much appreciated. A better, deeper man Having lived in Ukrainian drama, a man striving to be better, striving for dialogue with people he feels close and deep. One, for example, I continue with Lele Adani (“brother”) and the other with Silvio Baldini, who has boundless admiration. Knowing that around the same time he was signing for Brighton, Massa’s coach Perugia signed, and De Zerbe rejoiced (and Silvio with Leila would see a higher signal…)

No to empty logos
Baldini and de Zurbi are united in appealing to values ​​and vulgar criticism spread with empty slogans. “Stranger people”, “wanting to make phenomena”, this is also heard, because diversity and originality, one might even say the depth of man, is hardly comprehensible to the surface world. Which is according to the cliché, and De Zerbi had different things, such as the Build from Below mode, which is the game mode that everyone is now suggesting. Roberto believed in that from the start but his football is more complicated than that reduction.
“I am a person who lives by order, I like that my teams are always in order, and that there is consistency and geometry in the plays, but I look for the imagination within everything, I almost ask for it, but I was number 10, and I keep that condition inside me even now that I am a coach. I must not There is always the same tempo, there has to be a constant change of pace, depending on different factors. You don’t have to go forward, you have to read the situation and in fact, like the others, I try to explain it to the player. I show it to him, then of course he should know When and whether he has to make a particular choice in the game. I’m training to choose.”

Depth of zirp
This is how de Zerbe talks about football, here is the depth of his suggestion, and here are the cornerstones of his style that is not Bielsa in form (“Belsa goes more in style, for him goes through the repetition of the gesture, the understanding, the grasping of the concept”) but intrinsically Very (“I love his band’s personality, ambition, and courage, which I also demand of me, find myself there”).
The human depth and thus the depth of football, basically, every coach expresses his essence in proposing his team, always bringing with him new doubts and challenges. It is no coincidence that the Prime Minister wants to test it, and that there is much curiosity about which technician from outside has not judged a tiny amount of Italians (even if, as Montanelli writes, true Italian is intrinsically anti-Italian). This is why the credibility of our movement also depends on the outcome of its British experience.
We should all cheer him up, but not just for him, but above all, and therefore for us really.