Other than Internazionale: Milan’s third team is aiming for the planetarium. After the experience in Serie D with Walter Zenga as coach in 2000 at the Arena Garibaldi, the Brera Football Club has landed in North Macedonia, Mozambique and is now heading to Mongolia, in a sort of football Risk in the name of passion of the president-journalist Alessandro Aleotti, namesake but nothing to do with the rapper J-Ax.
Making friends, not millioners is his uncompromising ecumenical belief that is understandable at every latitude, even in Ulan Bator, the capital which is home to half the Mongolian population (3 million in total) where football is played for only six months of the year. From May to October, with possible variations in the event of particularly prolonged and ferocious winters, in addition to the “normal” ones which reach 50 degrees below zero with the aggravating factor of the Siberian wind which invites us to take refuge in houses rather than taking to the field or in the gher, the nomad tents built for millennia to resist the most extreme climate on Earth, even taken as samples by NASA technicians. Everything freezes under the effect of the zud, the permafrost that covers the land, making the situation dramatic for the nomads and their flocks. Let alone playing football.
Yet Mongolia, which in spring is reborn in its astonishing beauty, exudes that ancestral charm that continues to claim “victims”, after the visit of Pope Francis who defined it as a true oasis of wonder and friendship, despite two uncomfortable neighbors like Russia and China and for this reason “tipping the scales for world peace”.
In football, Mongolia – which dominates in sumo, wrestling, archery, in short, in all the disciplines worthy of the warrior heirs of Genghis Khan – has no excellence to be proud of, occupying 183rd place (out of 208 national teams) in the FIFA ranking, behind Chad and Macao. Compared to a few years ago, when the Mongolian rossoblù suffered terrible defeats (like a 0-15 against Uzbekistan), the situation has improved thanks also to the contribution of European and especially Italian coaches and players determined to try the most evocative Asian adventure , like the “pioneer” Giacomo Ratto, who seven years ago went to defend the posts of Ulaanbaatar City Fc to general amazement, while the Roman coach Fabio Lopez was offered the bench of the national team, now led by the Japanese Ichiro Otsuka.
And now here comes Milan with Brera Holdings listed on the Nasdaq to guarantee investments, technique and enthusiasm as has already happened in the “Serie A” of North Macedonia, the most “indigestible” footballing country for the Azzurri, with the experience of the Brera Strumica, presided over by another legendary honorary Milanese, Goran Pandev of the Nerazzurri treble who joyfully welcomed the alliance proposal. With the Brescian coach Giovanni Valenti, the team from the ancient Latin Tiberiopoli, with the name Fc Academy Pandev, is still at the top of the Macedonian table with 4 victories, 1 draw and only 1 defeat, a national cup in the trophy case and already in the continental league of Conference and Europa League.
The African adventure was also good with Brera Tchumene now at the top of Mozambique’s Serie B and ready for the big leap. Now the most difficult and evocative challenge, in the Deed Lig, the Mongolian Premier League, with reigning champions FC Ulaanbaatar renewing the age-old duel with their cousins from Erchim. Now, however, the two litigants will have to deal with a new force, Bayanzurch Sporting Ilch Fc founded in 2020 and already moved from the fourth to the first division, destined to repaint Mongolian football with the black-green colors of Brera, from Milan’s third team to first Ulaanbaatar.
2023-09-12 08:09:50
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