Toto and the days behind us

"Come on, you're still a young man", I often hear these days when I dare to speak about bodily sensations or limitations I face due to the age in which I find myself. "It's important how a person feels inside."

I roll my eyes to myself and think to myself - behave more, really. It was as if the whole world had fallen apart. I read the headline: "A young man (37) drowned." A young man? Biological development ends at 26, you are sexually mature at 12-13, girls even earlier. It's as if life is moving forward more and more, it's being postponed. Elementary school, high school, college, master's, doctorate, no one even talks about trades anymore... The imperative of success that continuously prolongs the entry into adulthood. General infantilization. Everything became so strange.

That is why it is extremely unexpected for me when I see that two eighteen-year-olds play for the Spanish national team, or Camaving for France, Jude Bellingham for the English. That used to be normal. I remember Mrkela against the Bulgarians in Sofia in '82, he was 17 years old, he was sensational. I'm watching '97, on BK TV Liverpool-Wimbledon, a 17-year-old kid enters the field as a substitute and I think, this one scores him and so it would be, Michael Owen on his debut. That's what youth looks like, I remember it perfectly.

However, it is an unusual feeling when someone from a generation leaves. You always think, oh my, it could have lasted. I scroll through the news on my iPhone. Toto Skilacci died and I thought, oh my God, and memories came back to me from that wonderful summer of the 60s that started with the World Cup in Italy, the atmosphere, the matches, his silhouette and face, the cheerfulness. Gianluca Vialli left last year. We are all the same age, as are the Mancins. Roberto, Salvatore and I, we all stopped in seven days, from Friday to Friday. SHS would have turned XNUMX on Unification Day.

Therefore, this story begins several decades ago.

THIRST FOR LIFE

Salvatore "Toto" Skilacci appeared on the very eve of the beginning of the Disintegration of the World as we knew it until then, conceived by the unification of Germany from two parts which in the end became whole, with the account of that geopolitical concoction which consequently turns out to this day. That year also saw the start of the last season of the Champions Cup according to the old egalitarian elimination format, so what the hell. We know the winner. On the way to the throne, Zvezda had to beat both German clubs, in order to get Schwab, not tied to football, out of pure malice, with the (un)expected support of a Saxon from Ryderburg, a certain Hans Dietrich Genscher, a former member of the Hitler Youth, NSDAP and Luftwaffe and holder of the order of Prince Trpimir with a necklace and Danica, helped to leave him without a country and a home field in the new convocation. But what followed in the spring, when Gypsy sought a way to the finals through Sofia and Toto's compatriots from Liguria with the song "It's sad to be a Patizan fan who sits next to the small screen on Wednesdays and watches the World Champion Star go straight to London", whose dreams, just like the country, were crushed by a Slovenian and Grobar in the ranks of Sampdoria with an equalizing goal, it was an apparently harmless verdict, which became established as Bosman's rule. Namely, from that moment there was no longer a limit on the number of foreigners in European clubs, Pandora's box opened and the show could begin. But, dear reader, until then football was something completely different from the one we know today and it looked something like this...

When Toto and I (and the others listed, including Mile Belodedić) were kids there in the seventies and early eighties, football was more or less a game based on merit and equality. With all the existing anomalies and jumps in society, but based on justice as much as possible. Rijeka even beat one Real with Lausanne in Kantrida, and Zvezda in the 75th and 87th in Voždovacka rupa. Hajduk to Valencia and Tottenham to Poljud. Workers' Feyenoord on the Chair. That was the time when Slovan Bratislava, Ipswich, Aston Villa, Gothenburg, Magdeburg, Hamburger, Dinamo Tbilisi, Dynamo Kyiv, Aberdeen won the European Cups, and Legia Warsaw, Saint Etienne and Leeds United ran alongside them, which is unimaginable today.

All those teams were composed of local players. A few foreigners here and there, initially one, then two in the early eighties, then three in the late eighties, and all in that style. The Italian clubs of that time, as well as the national team, were struggling. Milan won the Cup Winners' Cup in the early 11s, and then Juve some 77 years later. Juve took one UEFA Cup in '16. and that would be it. Nothing in the Champions Cup for 70 years. At the World Championships since Mexico '82. to Spain in 'XNUMX. mild despair. And then Paolo came. And changed everything, from the roots. Because frogs were known for laying eggs. They gave the ball like a snake to a frog. It was unwatchable. The strongest foreigner in Kalč at that time was an Austrian from Inter - Prohasko, whom even his own mother no longer remembers. You could not sell the Italian footballer on the Island, which had just opened, even with the help of the Chamber, and that at a time when Nidža Jovanović, Staja Nikolić, Borota, Džemal Hadžiabdić, Rade Antić, Golac, Pižon and Radojko Avramović. Somewhere in Italy, there was a galaxy of kids who watched all that, just like me, and fucked. Something had to change and they were waiting for a sign. And he came straight out of nowhere. Twenty-six-year-old, somewhat forgotten Paolo Rossi, once a great hope, now eager for everything, and above all the life that was taken from him, was returned from a multi-year suspension due to a match-fixing scandal.

ITALY, THE PROMISED LAND

The first three games in the group were terrible, a typical frog hassle, with a draw and a draw in the elimination part, where, with a complete change of philosophy and a more goal-oriented game, they overcame first Argentina, then Brazil, then Poland and finally capitalist Germany, known as the Armored Division . He dominated Rossi with six goals and the most beautiful smile in the world. It must have felt like a cocaine bomb to the then eighteen-year-olds. All of a sudden, Italian football woke up and played, and started a serious multi-year breakthrough for a place under the sun. First, two of the best players from the just-concluded World Cup, Platini and Bonjek, came to Juve first, in the two only possible places reserved for foreign players, and they created one of the most spectacular teams in history, a team that won six trophies in two years in a row - the Cup of Italy, Cup Winners' Cup, Super Cup, Calcio, Champions Cup and Intercontinental Cup. This opened the door to bringing the best quality foreigners, who flooded the Apennines and contributed to the rise of Napoli, Milan, Torino, Inter, Sampdoria, Atalanta, and in the second half of the eighties made Calce the strongest and most exciting league in the world, in which every round brought a clash of giants like which are Maradona, Gullit, Junior, Matheus, Zico, Laudrup, Rummenigge, Van Basten, Alemao, Klinsmann, Kanidja, Kareka, Feller, Zmuda, Evair, Brady, Socrates, Souness, Milton, Rijkaard, Munoz, Breme, Edu, Rubio, Zavarov...

Whoever was holding his own in world football wanted to get his hands on Italy. You literally couldn't see that anywhere else. The World Cup in Italy was supposed to represent the triumph of that Brave New World in which there is only growth and ascent, founded on the ruins of bloc divisions, in the dawn of a unipolar order. Super fancy stadiums, manicured lawns manicured to perfection, over-the-top sports equipment made for acid house parties. There was even a porno work about world sex events, with Ron Jeremy and Joey Silver in the roles of Maradona and Rudy Feller. And then to all that - Toto.

Toto was the last outgrowth of the unexpected, before football was engulfed by the industrialization that buys children at a young age. Born on the first day of December 1964 in Palermo, in a poor family, at the age of 18 he played for the Sicilian Messina, which until his arrival was playing in the third division. Not long after, thanks above all to his dexterity and goals, they became second division players. There he drew the attention of the greats and after seven years spent at the club, in the 1989/90 season, before the World Cup, he signed a contract with the Italian giant Juventus and at the age of twenty-five he made his first appearance in the top tier, which, understandably, launched him into the national selection.

It is the time of the long-awaited harvest of Italian clubs in European Cups. Milan with the Dutch trio of Rijkaard-Gulit-Van Basten wins two consecutive Champions Cups, Napoli with Maradona, Alema and Kareka and Juve with Casiraghi, De Agostini, Zavarov, Alejnikov and Rui Barosh the Uefa Cup, while Sampdoria, led by Vujadin Boskov on the bench, with With Vijali, Mancini, Katanec, Paljuk and Vjerhovod, he takes the Cup Winners' Cup. The World Cup could start and everything was bursting with collisions and rivalries between the stars of the clubs from the Apennine Peninsula. The match of the round of 16 was particularly bizarre, where the teams of Brazil and Argentina met directly, both led by their club mates from Napoli and which was solved by one goal from two moves by the Argentines playing in Italy.

The situation in the Italian national team was irresistibly reminiscent of Spain from eight years ago, they struggled as usual at the very start, although they achieved all three victories in the group, against Austria and America with a minimal score and overall without conceding a goal. It was a formidable team, probably one of the best since football was played in Italy, made up of the aces themselves. Apart from those mentioned from Sampdoria, there were Baresi, Ancelotti, Maldini and Donadoni from Milan, Baggio and De Agostini from Juventus, Zenga and Bergomi from Inter, Ciro Ferrara and De Napoli from Napoli...

photo: ap photo

AS A SPECTATOR FROM THE STANDS

What could possibly go wrong? Well, just about anything attacking was concerned. They played in spasms because the expectations were the highest, the pressure was unbearable. The host with a constellation of proven stars that he almost never had, which carries with it a responsibility that most of them have not faced before. From the championship generation of '82. nobody expected anything. They overpowered themselves in the first game against Austria, which was a team breakdown. Vićini, more out of desperation, instead of Karnevale brings in Skilaći, for whom it is only the second appearance for the national team in his life and who was not even a leading star in his home club. And boom-tras there is a goal ten minutes before the end. Euphoria. Madhouse. The next one is against the "superpower" America, which Czechoslovakia previously overcame with 5:1. Crushing again and skinny 1:0. Vicini realized that he had to change something, and instead of bringing him in from the bench, he put Skilaci in the first team alongside Bago, and it paid off. They defeated the powerful Czechs and Slovaks with two spectacular goals and bought themselves tickets to the next round.

This only 1,73 m tall striker hoped for capital goals with his head like hardly anyone. But above all, he brought some strange enthusiasm to the field, he was a complete anti-star as a phenomenon, as if you chose one of the spectators from the stands, put on his T-shirt and shorts and said, keep going, bro, as far as you can go. It is unreal how much the audience, both in the stadium and in front of the TV, related to him. He played football as it seemed any of us would have played it in his place. He didn't stand out with any special skills or athletic build, he wasn't faster or more dexterous, but whenever you thought someone needed to be where he needed to be, he would find himself in the place of truth and score. He had an incredible sense of space and timeliness. His shit was unprecedented. All six goals he scored in the championship are an exemplary example of the role and versatility of a top goalscorer. He gave them from all positions, with his head, with his foot, on the ground, with a half-volley, from solo actions, in the penalty area, outside the penalty area, from the penalty spot, moving exceptionally well with the ball, and especially without it, always aware of the development of the action. He was literally unstoppable, which eventually earned him the Golden Boot for the championship's top scorer and the Golden Ball for the championship's best player, despite Italy eventually finishing third. The key was the semi-final match against Argentina, which, due to a combination of surreal circumstances, took place in Naples, a city where Maradona is an unquestionable deity. It was an indirect clash between the Camorra and the Mafia, and the whole stadium got behind the Gauchos, which left the Toads in a state of shock. In the heated atmosphere of the stadium, which the rest of Italy looked at as a public embarrassment witnessed by the entire planet, Toto and Claudio, who in the same combination with Diego had already judged Brazil, each put one into the net and the matter was settled in a penalty shootout. The title was won by capitalist Germany only three months before unification, i.e. the corporate annexation of socialist Germany, and that from a non-existent penalty. Just two months before that, another Toto sang winningly in the middle of Zagreb at the Eurovision Song Contest Insjeme, Unite Unite Europe. But that's a completely different story. And maybe not.

Toto Skilaći was pure joy. An example of a man who succeeds when least expected, thanks to lucidity and dedication. He knew how to use the cards that opened up. It was a pleasure to watch him. That whole generation deserves special attention because many of them finally played on the Island, as the leading stars of the newly formed Premier League in the nineties. After the end of the World Cup, Salvatore spent two more seasons in Juventus with numerous injuries, and two more seasons in the graveyard of talents at Inter. There he fought for a position with Pancevo and Ruben Sosa, and then, as the first Italian in history, he went to the then newly discovered football destination - Japan's J League, which in that era was what Saudi Arabia is today, taking the title and hanging football boots on a wedge with 35. As if that 1990 was the demarcation line for many destinies, from countries to phenomena and personalities from different spheres. I will always remember him with warmth in my heart. Travel, gene, I will raise a glass in your name three days before my 60th.