Often the daily facts help more than words to explain concepts that otherwise seem just pretty words often too far from the reality. The sport fairness, the desire to play and to give up to an easy victory, to prefer the values of healthy sporting competition are all concepts that become tangible in the episode described below and published in the Italian newspaper “Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno.” Here’s what ithappened in Foggia, in the youth national football championship (14-16 years old).
“For many it does not matter how to win, the important thing is to win. This thought did not touch at all the ersmanag and players of the National League Pro Soccer of Foggia team on sunday morning – on the pitch of Rocchetta Sant’Antonio, a small village in the Apennine Daunus – waiting for the arrival of the same age team – Ischia Green Island – to play the match … It was scheduled at 11am, but just few minutes from the kick-off the team Ischia there was no there, until the call of the Ischia manager: “We have a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end by a landslide. The bus is stuck and we try to walk.” … they understood immediately that Ischia team by walking, it would never come on time. So instead of thinking about the game, they would have won without playing, the Foggia manager alerted the Police, the local branch of Civil Protection, and they started a procession of cars made by the inhabitants of Rocchetta Sant’Antonio, parents of boys and also by the parents of the Ischia boys who had come regularly to the Ischia field. The aid has paid off . The boys arrived at the Ischia field half an hour after the scheduled start of the match, but just in time to play … The moral: win is nice, but only after playing , because winning without playing is as if I did not win” (from La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno).
(by Daniela Sepio)
