There are people who accompany us even if we have not known them, if they have never known about us. People unrelated to family, like friends, but whom we considered close, to whom we loved, perhaps also because they accompanied us as children and gave us indelible emotions.
I learned of the death of Wilson Pine reading a news agency on Monday morning, but I didn’t believe it. So I searched the net and found confirmation in a few minutes. Indisputable. At that point I gave up, in fact I stopped and went back to when Wilson was playing, free, with the “4” on his shoulders. And I looked at him, sitting on the wooden benches of the Olimpico. I remember little of the championship of the historic first Scudetto, 1973-74. But of the next one, a lot and then more and more. Matches and results, but also actions, goals saved or facts. Of that Lazio that hardly exists anymore, each player personified something. How it was of epic heroes.
Chinaglia was the unstoppable race towards the goal, D’Amico, the juggler capable of everything – for better or for worse – Frustalupi the enlightened organizer, Pulici, the essential goalkeeper, Wilson, the elegant freeman. His specialty? The slip on the attacker on the run. Taking the ball, only exceptionally the opponent’s feet. I liked seeing him run across the field, almost on tiptoe, as if he were dancing. Preferably in the center, behind, but also further ahead, when he saw the space to go down. Sometimes up to the penalty area.
In the football that was, Wilson it was my captain. Red armband and head held high. Always high, even when events have overwhelmed him, clouding his departure from the fields. But not his person, after all this is what is always appreciated in him: being steadfast, reliable, a certainty you can count on. For me, boy, Wilson represented this. And now that he’s gone, neither on the pitch nor on TV, where he frequently appeared to comment on his team’s matches, I think back wistfully how many Sundays have we spent together. Him on the lawn of the Olimpico and me watching him. After eating the sandwiches brought from home and smelling the smoke bombs fired by the fans in the corners.
Then we went to the stadium hours before the game – many, to take the place – and in those long waits we talked to those close to us, we talked about the match that would be seen, we let ourselves sink in a temporal suspension 105 minutes long – two 45-minute halves interspersed with an interval. What nostalgia to think of Wilson who at kick-off was positioned a few meters outside his own penalty area, with his hands on his hips, waiting for him to leave. One look at the bench and the other at the goalkeeper, behind him.
I hardly go to the stadium anymore, although I continue to cheer for the team in which Wilson played for so many years, whom I continue to see in front of his penalty area, waiting for the kick-off. And then ready to counter the opponent’s tip, with his head held high. Remembering him like this hurts me less. Perhaps.
