From Tufello to Lazio's Scudetto, the glorious tale of Giancarlo Oddi

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The flight in the blue-and-white sky of the only heart of Rome of the scudetto-winning Lazio of '74. “I was born in Tufello. And of Tufello, as the rapper Rancore sings, I know every curve, every road, every crossroads. In Tufello, when I was a child, but perhaps even now, there was only football, boxing and, all around, dangerous alternatives and temptations. In Tufello there were no fields, only haphazardly cultivated vegetable gardens. Football was my life from the very beginning . All my friends, with whom I played fearlessly in the middle of the street, were Roma fans. I was one of the very few outside the chorus. It was my mother's brother who convinced me, a poisoned Lazio fan like few I would have met, who took me to see a Lazio-Lanerossi Vicenza at the Flaminio, where our stadium should be built. You won't believe it, but it wasn't the white and blue shirt that bewitched me, but the white shorts that shone when they came into contact with the light ”.

Giancarlo Oddi , born in 1948, of the 1974 Lazio team that won the championship, was not only the stopper with the number 5 on his back, but also the only Roman. From the Romanity of the suburbs he retains the heart, the contagious sympathy and the pride of a successful life, where it was not taken for granted…

“My father was my luck. He was what you would call a man of integrity and he didn’t allow me to go further or deviate from what he thought was the right path to follow. Targeting me wasn’t convenient for anyone. And when I did something wrong, he found out before anyone else. And I got into trouble every time, anyone who wants to understand can understand. He was a truck driver, but before that he had been a boxer. Going against him was dangerous. And potentially a mess. By fair means or foul he restored the established order. He was a man who made himself respected . Without him there would have been nothing that came after. Without him I would have stayed there hanging around. My first team was the makeshift one from my neighborhood. It was pompously called Santos, like the one where my idol Pelé played, world champion with Brazil in Stockholm in 1958. The coach was a boy who had had problems with the law. I was ten years old and really wanted to run towards to everything that wasn't wrong."

Giancarlo der Tufello's apprenticeship was brief. The neighborhood tournaments with Santos de noantri, Gate, the Giornale d'Italia team, which played its home games at Acquacetosa… “From the streets of Tufello to the green grass fields of Acquacetosa. It was my first leap forward. Then Almas, which was in San Giovanni. I took the 33 to Termini station and then the 4 to the finish line. From there the leap was triple. With the Lazio Primavera I went to play a tournament in France and you can imagine what it can mean for a boy to go from Tufello to the Eiffel Tower all in one go. I hitchhiked to Tor di Quinto, which was the only means of transport available. The dream galloped faster than light and I was dazzled by it, like those white shorts in my first live match. A race without obstacles from the youth team to the first team, Chinaglia, Maestrelli, us who felt stronger than everyone else, even if we were part of a team that hadn't won anything before. Even if the others were called Juventus, Inter and Milan”.

At Lazio he finds Long John Chinaglia again… “ We had done military service together, just like Martini and Re Cecconi . The clans, or rather the opposing souls that became one on the pitch, were born in the barracks. I arrived at Lazio before him, who came, like Wilson, from Internapoli. “What are you doing here?” he asked me, incredulous and happy. We would never be separated again”.

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She was the only Roman… “ Yes, and I made fun of them like you do with someone who arrives in Rome as an unwary foreigner . There were opposing groups, but on Sunday they all split up and there was only Lazio. We were convinced that we were stronger than those who had written history, Inter, Milan and, above all, Juventus, who at the time were considered by everyone to be the masters of Italy. That Lazio would not have been the great team that it was, if Tommaso Maestrelli had not been there. Before being a great coach, he was an exceptional man. We could even hurt each other, but then he talked. He talked to everyone, even friends and girlfriends. And you could do nothing but listen to him. Maestrelli was our stroke of luck. There were the “Milanese” and the others: me, Chinaglia, Wilson. Armed against each other. Proud, bold, impertinent, egocentric, quarrelsome. Then Maestrelli arrived and we became a team .”

A stroke of luck that risked getting lost in the depths of a fierce protest… “We had just climbed back up to Serie A. We had been eliminated from the Coppa Italia. We went to train at the Flaminio, thinking that it could, if not disperse, at least thin out the protest. And, instead, when we came out of the underpass and began warming up under the orders of the assistant coach, who was Bob Lovati, we were hit by whistles and the classic phraseology of Roman anger. Maestrelli wasn't with us, he seemed to have disappeared. Then we saw that he had gone up to the stands to talk to the protesters. We were tempted to step out of the ranks to go and defend him, but Lovati stopped us . In the end everyone applauded not only him, but the entire team. It was an important step, because from there we began to fly. We had started to avoid relegation and we rewrote history”.

An almost scudetto in '73, a real one, the first in Lazio's history the following year, but no Champions Cup, because of the precedent of the match against Ipswich in the UEFA Cup... “At their house the referee did all sorts of things to us. Just to give you an example, one of the players I was marking earned a penalty kick by kicking himself. The result of the farce was 4-0. After the game, they made fun of us, mockingly calling us “Italians” and spat in our faces. Petrelli, who was the least calm of the group, wanted to fight, I told him to stay calm, we would have let off steam in the return match. And at the Olimpico, when we understood that the comeback had become impossible, due to another obscene referee, we stopped playing and the manhunt began, including the referee, which continued even in the underpass, after the final whistle of the punisher in the black jersey. We never learned to lower our heads. We liked making ourselves respected too much ”.

Has football or Tufello changed more? “Tufello hasn’t changed. It’s there. Still. Waiting, now as then, for the storm to pass. Football, on the other hand, has changed profoundly. The generosity that was there before is no longer there. The boundless affection is no longer there. The fathers are no longer there and, consequently, not even the sons. Today a coach finds himself facing players from the most varied countries. If you don’t know all the languages, you’re left with gestures .”

Do you still dream? “I dream of Santos del Tufello, of youth but, above all, of the great beauty that we were all together. I dream of my companions. I am very lucky, because they are still here, while most of them are no longer here. They passed away too soon and in a way that was too painful. What happened to us almost never happens. Incredible deaths. The pain still hurts. Fortunately, dreams are by their nature sweet and comforting, like a caress to the heart. We were bold and proud. The powerful and the extras alike had to resign themselves. We were the strongest .”

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