Archimedes and Tardelli's Scream

Forget April, July is the cruelest of months.

Those who have already finished their holidays are struggling with memories that seem so distant, those who have yet to begin their holidays are beside themselves, and those who are currently living them are suspended in that no-man's land between air conditioning and a woolen blanket. Football fans aren't faring any better. Of course, between a sunstroke and a sudden flood, a Club World Cup is better, which—maybe I'm wrong—has been as popular with fans as a heavy downpour just when you've just put the meat on the campsite barbecue. And let's face it, a break from football would be justified. It was so nice to clear your head for a couple of months, to occasionally glance at the transfer market and recharge your batteries while eagerly awaiting the new season with the usual high hopes.

During the summer, the only valid reason not to unplug from football would be the World Cup. The real one . But who remembers it? Given that even the national team's latest performances don't bode well for the near future, it would be better to dedicate oneself to crosswords, Sudoku, or, for the more daring, Stomàchion, a puzzle certainly less well-known than its illustrious inventor.

It is said that Archimedes of Syracuse, the famous third-century scientist, inventor, and mathematician, was involved in a dispute over the allocation of land to the Syracusan nobles. Unable to resolve the matter quickly due to the distribution of the land, he planted wooden stakes around which he tied ropes, thus drawing geometric figures. By calculating the areas of the shapes he found—equilateral, isosceles, isospheric, orthogonal, and scalene triangles—he was able to demonstrate to the nobles that everyone, despite their different shapes, would obtain the same land ownership. Apparently, it was from this work that the Stomachion was born, a game similar to the tangram and the ancestor of the more famous Rubik's Cube. A game to take on vacation, in short, perhaps to distract oneself from rascal nostalgia. Some said that there is no greater pain than remembering happy times amidst poverty. And today is precisely the right day to hurt oneself.

On July 11, 1982, the FIFA World Cup final was played between Italy and West Germany at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid . The first half ended goalless; in the second half, the Azzurri—with six Juventus players on the pitch—took center stage, and after Rossi's first goal in the 57th minute, they taught the Germans geometry. Roumenigge attempted to pass the ball to Breitner, who, like an inattentive schoolboy, was beaten to the ball by Paolo Rossi, a new defender. Enter Archimede Scirea, who, during his run toward the opponent's goal, seemed to be a compendium of the Syracusan scientist's book, "On the Sphere and the Cylinder": in midfield, he passed the ball to Conti on the right, who moved inside and dribbled almost to the edge of the opponent's penalty area before Rossi's arrival. Pablito passes the ball back to Scirea inside the box on the right, who flicks a right-footed backheel into the box for Bergomi. The pass again goes to the Juventus player, who stalls and then mocks the defenders before passing the ball to Tardelli with a low left-footed shot towards the edge of the box. Tardelli blocks the ball with his right foot, rising just a little to volley it home at the far post, right into the corner, out of reach of the goalkeeper .

Speed, precision, class, and frenetic geometry make that action a geometric figure that should be consigned not to geometry books but to history books.

It's no coincidence that the Greek term Stomachion—that ancient puzzle composed of fourteen pieces cut into complementary geometric shapes, allowing the player to form a square by changing the combination based on their skill—derives from Stomachos, irritation, stomachache, presumably the same one the puzzle inflicted on all those who attempted it. Because the Germans, that evening, after the goal, seemed stunned, certainly irritated, with stomachaches that caused dizziness from combinatorics, essential for solving the Stomachion but also for the play. After such a daunting move, the third goal could not have been missed, scored in the 81st minute by Altobelli, who had come on for Graziani in the seventh minute. Game over. They can't catch us anymore. Breitner, determined not to be permanently sent back to geometry, made up for the anticipation that led to the second goal for the Italian national team by scoring the consolation goal in the 83rd minute. The Syracusan nobles were satisfied, as were the six Juventus standard-bearers, the backbone of a world-champion national team that passed with flying colors in geometry.

We hope that the current team, however, will barely make it through the September exams. We hope that next July, we won't have to retreat back into the paradise of memories. After all, with someone named Gennaro on the bench, it's reasonable to expect a miracle.

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