Since the beginning of the season, Como 1907 has been accustoming us to sparkling innovations before, after and during the matches: not only the illuminating strokes of creativity of the very stylish Nico Paz but also unexpected live shows by Italian rap legends and a Hollywood parterre du roi – in the home games at Sinigaglia – which would seem to wink more at the Golden Globes than at Serie A. However, it was unsuspected, however, that the short circuit between creative universes never as in recent years, football and fashion have gone hand in hand with the celebration of two legendary personalities of the Italian football tradition, who passed through Como in the Sixties and Eighties respectively: Luigi Meroni and Stefano Borgonovo.
Luigi Meroni aka the Italian George Best, embodied – both in his playing style and in life – countercultural, histrionic and non-conformist traits. At 24 years old he already had a list of achievements as a giant of Italian football: 145 games in Serie A with the shirts of Turin and Genoa (plus 25 in Serie B, with Como), with a score of 29 goals. With his revolutionary lightness, he defended an extremely peculiar way of being in the world, a free way in the least artificial and rhetorical sense of the term. Free like when coach Edmondo Fabbri asked him to cut his hair and he refused, making it an almost ideological question, of freedom precisely. An acrobatic dribbler, just like Best, he personified a style more easily assimilable to that of an occult member of the Beatles than to the stereotype of the footballer, if one existed.
In fact, there was nothing stereotypical about Luigi “Gigi” Meroni; this is how the sports journalist Vladimiro Caminiti described him in those years: «We are not for long-haired people, but we know one and he is a very good boy, equal to many of his age. Plus he has hair and quirks. He designs the clothes and then takes them to the tailor personally following the packaging. He paints but cannot say to what extent he is an artist… His name is Meroni, his friends call him Gigi.” Imagine a player who at 20 years old was already painting pictures and designing ties, what could he be today? Probably the new creative director of Bottega Veneta. He died dramatically at the age of 24, hit by a car while heading to the bar, the usual bar. His tragic and premature end, in some ways even crazier than Best’s cursed end, however does not affect anything of his creative freedom or his creativity, on and off the pitch.
Stefano Borgonovo was a quiet, elegant footballer, “a born striker” said Trapattoni when he saw him play on a provincial pitch at 10 years old. He made his debut at the age of 18 in Como and wandered around – collecting a good number of goals – in the following years in various teams including Sacchi’s Milan (his goal against Bayern Munich took Milan to the Champions Cup final in 1990) and Fiorentina where, alongside Baggio, he found the sublimation of his qualities as a centre-forward. B2, Borgonovo-Baggio, scored 29 goals in two in the historic 1988-1989 season. At the end of his career he returned to Como, dedicating himself to coaching youth teams until the malignant arrival of the disease, the “bitch”, as he himself called ALS.
The bitter epilogue of Stefano Borgonovo’s life contrasts tragically with the lightheartedness of that season with Baggio. A deep relationship that went beyond the pitch. «And do you know what my greatest joy was then?», asked Baggio, addressing his companion on the day of his death. «Maybe I never told you: scoring yourself with an assist and seeing infinite happiness in your eyes. It is the memory of that happiness which today, dear Stefano, manages to compensate for the pain of the news of your death.” A legend, also in the firmness of spirit with which he managed to fight even at the height of his illness: «If I could, I would take the field now, on a lawn or in the oratory. Because I love football” he said, through the vocal synthesizer with which he expressed himself, in 2008, five years before his death.
And it is precisely to celebrate the influence of these two somewhat unique figures in the Italian cultural and football panorama, Luigi “Gigi” Meroni and Stefano Borgonovo, that this Legends Collection was created – in a limited edition and only in some ad hoc sales points of Como 1907 in collaboration with adidas. A collection – homage to two extraordinary lives – which includes: a dual version adidas sneaker, each with a specific depiction of the individual footballer, two gray t-shirts, each with vintage graphics portraying Stefano Borgonovo and Gigi Meroni and a plaque relating to the period of career from Como and, finally, an exclusive jacket to celebrate the legacy and fighting spirit left by Borgonovo.
For all fans, but also for inveterate fashionistas, the collection will be available both online on shop.comofootball.com and at the official adidas x Como 1907 store in Via Bernardino Luini 18 in Como, starting from 10.00 am on Sunday 24 November .
Advantage Premium Borgonovo Sneakers adidas x Como 1907
