HURRAY FOR FÚTBOL!

"In England football was born, in South America the love for football", said the claim of an advertisement for a famous Argentine beer, taking up and summarising a series of popular sayings from Rio de Janeiro that want the birth of the intense and pure passion for football, which in fact becomes futbol, far away from London and English collages. The feeling of vibrating for 90 minutes of the game and a life of pre and post-match, the love for colours, a common and shared history is born between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. This is the football we know, the one that is hard to define as a sport because it brings with it values but also a unique daily magic. Football is therefore territory, neighbourhood, roots. And stories, in fact. Because it is always in South America, from these premises, that the tale of football is born, which is a tale of life and men.

Carlo Pizzigoni and Alessandro Sanna's works, books, studies, popular insights are the basis of the knowledge we have of South America in the Italian language. And starting from those stories, Carlo and Ale, with the mediation of Yvonne Alessandro, will try to engage us on why the appeal of South America, the Latin American mode of storytelling possesses a unique fascination, and not only for those who follow football closely or for those who do not like it. Telling football in South America has always meant telling about men and life, rather than sport and results. Football stories are in fact universal, without borders, but they clearly have a recognised model, which tastes of land, people, roots. The South American model.

Reference books: “Locos por el fútbol. Cent'anni di calcio. Pelé, Messi, Maradona e altri dèi sudamericani.” by Carlo Pizzigoni (Nuova ediz. Sperling&Kupfer 2023); “¡Que viva el fútbol!: Storie, aneddoti e cronache delle più accese rivalità sudamericane” by Alessandro Sanna (Amazon ed., 2021);  “Fantasie Calcistiche Rioplatensi: Storie di fútbol tra fantasia e realtà” by Alessandro Sanna (Amazon ed., 2020)