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Aldo Serena and the historic prison that Goycochea cut him in Italy '90: "My legs trembled and I kicked with fear"

2020-07-03T13:54:56.284Z


The Italian striker who suffered the reflexes of the Basque in the last shot of the semifinal of that World Cup remembered with extreme gentleness and sincerity that fateful night in the South of Italy.


Matias Calomarde

07/03/2020 - 7:40

  • Clarín.com
  • sports

-How was the before and after the penalty shootout?

-I was not among the kickers, so I sat down. Azeglio Vicini (the coach) passed twice telling me that he couldn't find five kickers because most of the players were not feeling well. At the 1985 Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo he played for Juventus and against Argentinos Juniors he knew he was one of the 5 kickers. I was calm and scored. In Naples, on the other hand, when I got up, I realized that I had become nervous. My ears were plugged and my legs were shaking. I tried to relax by taking a deep breath but I couldn't calm down and kicked in fear.

The rest is history, one that has been part of the Argentine soccer imaginary for three decades. Notti magiche ...

Aldo Serena is the protagonist of the story. Born in Montebelluna in 1960, this 1.83 meter forward who specialized in aerial play achieved some important records during his career. He was the "capo cannoniere" of the 1988/89 season of Serie A with 22 goals playing for Inter champion. And he is the only footballer who played the Turin classic (Juventus and Torino) and the Milan classic (Inter and Milan) wearing the shirts of the four teams.

However, when it came to rewinding his career, the world remembers him for what happened on July 3, 1990 at the San Paolo stadium in Naples: he was in charge of kicking Azzurra's fifth penalty, the one that Sergio Goycochea held back. with the elbow and the left side of his body for Argentina to eliminate the home match and qualify for the World Cup final.

Although it is already known that it was a fictional story, typical of the imagination of some creatives for a beer advertisement, Serena ended up being in the popular imagination the face of "Siamo fuori della Copa. E a very sad giorno".

"We knew that in San Paolo we would not find the same atmosphere as in Rome. Maradona played his cards very well saying a few days before that Italy remembered Naples only when it served him and thus created a rift in the Italian fans," Serena tells him. to Clarín , 30 years after that unforgettable definition in which the Neapolitans had their hearts divided between the team that represented them and the man who became a deity due to joys and more joys for the until then always postponed team of the southern city of the peninsula.

"Diego was impossible to score and for those who love soccer, even if he were not Argentine, it was a beauty and pure poetry to see," said the 60-year-old from Treviso, who is currently a commentator for the Mediaset network.

-What memory do you have of the 1990 World Cup in Italy?

-A sweet and bitter memory. The image of Rome full of tricolor flags will always be in my heart.

-In Argentina it was said that this World Cup was organized for Italy to win. 

-In each World Cup the home teams have had advantages, sometimes minimal and sometimes great. There are several examples: England in 1966, Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978, France 1998 and South Korea in 2002. All of them had benefits in the World Cups they organized.

-What do you think of that Argentine team that was champion in 1986 and runner-up in 1990?

-I was also in the World Cup in Mexico and playing 2,000 meters above sea level at noon was very exhausting. You couldn't keep up the pace throughout the match and beat the more technical teams, like Brazil or Argentina. Argentina had Maradona of 26 years in its splendor and Brazil to Zico of 33 years, more experienced. In Italy 1990, on the other hand, it was not the same Argentina. They were a highly skilled team at defending themselves with a Maradona operating within a narrower range and ready to unleash Caniggia's speed. It was a very different Argentina, with fewer variations than 4 years earlier.

The Serena World Cup started in the round of 16. She had the pleasure of entering the second half against Uruguay and converting 2 to 0, just on the day of her 30th birthday. She also played a few minutes in 1 to 0 over Ireland in the quarterfinals.

In the semifinal against Argentina led by Carlos Bilardo, Aldo entered with 20 on his back after 25 minutes of complement in replacement of Gianluca Vialli, three minutes after Claudio Caniggia took advantage of Walter Zenga's error to score 1 to 1 .

Parity was maintained during overtime and the finalist had to be defined through penalties, an instance in which, as you all know, Argentina prevailed by 4 to 3 thanks to the stellar appearance of Goycochea, who stopped the shots Roberto Donadoni and whoever accessed this hand in hand with Clarín.

- Would you have liked to have more participation during the Cup?

-I would have liked to play more, of course. But I was not a specialized attacker, I was not good at everything, so up to 15 minutes might have been enough in one context to be useful.

-In addition to the dilemma of the Neapolitan fans, what other factors played against them in the semifinal against Argentina?

-The fact that we no longer had the same fluid game, we were tense and we could not have the same tranquility as in previous games. Perhaps if Pietro Vierchwood had played over Maradona and from the beginning Roberto Baggio instead of Gianluca Vialli, the things would have been different.

-What do you remember of your personal fight with Oscar Ruggeri, the one in charge of marking you? 

-From the bench I saw that Ruggeri had intimidated Vialli and that playing hard had blocked him. My idea was not to fall into the trap and try to destabilize him by provoking him backwards, telling him that he couldn't feel either the beatings he was giving me or the provocations he was telling me so that he would hit harder and cross the line to be expelled. The referee Michel Vautrot (French), however, was not willing to make tough decisions.

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-What did you feel after Goycochea saved you the penalty?

- There is always the great disappointment of not having lived up to the situation, knowing that if he had scored a goal after me an Argentine would kick and probably would have ended the same way.

-Did you get mad at coach Azeglio Vicini for suggesting that you kick the penalty kick when you didn't want to or do you think he was not at fault?

-No, what's more, with Vicini we have maintained a good relationship until his death (NdR: he died on January 30, 2018 at the age of 83). You must always try to understand the reasons of others and I have understood that moment very well as well as that of my colleagues who did not want to kick the prison. Each one deals with his own conscience and I have always faced all situations in life, always trying to reason. And when it was not possible to reason, because there was no time, to fight with myself for myself, for my teammates, for the team or for Italy without retiring.

-You went from converting a goal on your birthday to missing the defining penalty. Do you think football was unfair to you?

-Football is a metaphor for life. Sometimes you have great satisfactions like great disappointments. The important thing is to always try to give the maximum and the times that you cannot make yourself understood so as not to fall into the same error the next time.

-In these 30 years, did you have the opportunity to speak with any of your Argentine rivals in that semifinal?

-I do not have contact with Argentine national team players, but I do have my cousins ​​in Rosario who cheer Rosario Central and enlighten me about the Argentine soccer faith and the warm way of supporting the team. In 1950, several of my uncles had moved to Rosario and then some returned to Italy, but Antonio Gallina's family with children and grandchildren has been living there for many years.


From Maradona to Messi

From his role as a journalist, he assures this newspaper that Lionel Messi is currently the best soccer player on the planet, although he does not think the same about the performance of Rosario with the light blue and white.

"It cannot be argued that Messi is the essence of football. However, it was unfortunate for him to have been born after Maradona. The psychological weight of the number 10 shirt is undeniable and for him it has always been heavy to wear," he says, and then He adds that "it is a mystery the fact that in recent years Argentina has had a sector of attack as strong as no other team in the world and did not win anything. Perhaps there was not adequate quality in the midfielders."

And it closes: "In the World Cup in Russia I predicted an Argentina in the final, but it was not like that," he declared, before getting fully into the memory of the World Cup that he dreamed of lifting but that ended in a nightmare.

Special for Clarín

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2020-07-03

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