Stefano Biondi is dead. Great Bolognese: Tell and Love Football and the City

Bologna, 12 May 2022 – We left yesterday Stefano BiondiAnd I don’t know if Bologna knows what it is for her, and she is for him: but I think so.

Stevenfrom Bolognaera fall in love, in fact it was formed from Bologna; And in the city was an unusual narrator for his way of being. Because Stefano is a great journalist precisely because he is this: a great storyteller. He was like this even as a child: what he said, he said, enchanted the listener. Set it up, color it, and make it look great. I remember one evening, or rather a night he spent in front of his parents’ house in Milano Marittima, on the port of the Canal. It was the year we grew up (both from 1958) and imagined what we would do when we grew up. “I’d like to be a screenwriter,” he told me. He was a journalist, but in a way that makes every article more like a movie. When he wrote, he did not write a piece: he wrote what he saw and what he had to tell the reader.

eraBut, family habits. His fatherAnd dinowas too great journalist. Reporter from Paris del Carlino, director of the stadium, deputy director of Carlino, author of books, one of which, “La Fabbrica del Duce”, was reprinted a few months ago as a milestone in the history of fascism. Stefano brought me a copy, apparently, in December, shortly before he fell ill, or shortly before he learned of his illness. He wrote the preface to this new edition and was very proud of it.

From that pride which prompted him, when he moved from the stadium of Al Carlino, to not say anything to his father, so as not to interfere, perhaps in his favour. Stefano did not need no preference. You don’t write it now that you’ve left us: you read it by going to review his pieces. There is no trivial one. He was so good that he would have had a completely different career if he had not put the most important things before everything: his beloved, his daughter Barbara, his son Pietro. For them, he never wanted to leave Bologna and for them he never wanted to take on roles that would keep him away from home for so long. On April 17, he wrote to me from a hospital bed: “Put yourself first. I urge you to always be last in line.” This is what he always did: first think of the people you love, and then think of yourself.

not long agoThe January 26He had texted me, if he could call me. I thought one of my hopes had come true: that the Syndicate of Journalists had given him permission to collaborate with Il Carlino despite his early retirement. Instead he wanted to tell me he was sick. He was afraid that he would not bear the pain, but not for himself: those around him, his wife Sabrina, and his children. A few days ago he wrote to me that, on the other hand, they gave him strength to fight: and if he did not give up, it was for them. Others, always others: Stefano always thought of others first.

When he was assigned to Stadio, the director asked him what he wanted to write about. He replied, “Boxing.” And he replied, “Okay, then you’re going to follow football.”

And so he started writing about the Bologna Football Club and, of course, about other football. It was he, after the Italian Cup Milan-Parma won by Emilian (then in the second division), who gathered the sensational confidence from Silvio Berlusconi: after Liedholm, the new Milan president wanted the young and unknown coach who defeated him, Arrigo on the bench bags. It was one of Stefano’s scoops. And at the end of the story with Carlino – his family’s newspaper – he continued to tell Bologna to Ètv, on the program, “The Eighth Tournament”, which the city loved so much.

city Of which Stefano knew and told Beyond football. He knew how to tell us all about the history of Bologna. I remember an extraordinary reconstruction of the attack on Mussolini and the summary execution of Antio Zamboni. Talking was his feature. I think his wife Sabrina would not be offended if she revealed that when I met her, about fifteen years ago, she said to me, “Stefano has possessed me by astonishing me with words.” And yes: as the Sicilians say, “Women must speak,” because the most powerful seduction is intellectual seduction. And Stefano seduced everyone, all of us colleagues, all of us his friends.

Of all my friends, Stefano was one of my greatest, even if we’d seen each other in years, after we were little more than kids, then boys together: but as another great bolognese, says Bobby Avati. The friendships that last forever are those of childhood and youth.

certainlyOf all my friends, Stefano is the most influential in my life choices. If I’m a journalist and if I’m not Bologna, and I love Bologna, it’s also because Stefano conveyed to me these two passions. I’ve loved this profession ever since I met Luca Goldoni when I was a kid. But at the same age the press made me breathe was Stefano.

One evening in 1977 (High school year…) We went to see “My Friends” at the open-air cinema in Lido di Savio. One of the heroes, Philip Noart, was Peroese, the nation’s chief correspondent, and he had the Innocenti Mini 90 bordeau. Same car, same color Stefano. The same car we got back in from the cinema talking about the press, with closed windows for those cigarettes I can’t even smell, because I can’t imagine Stefano without a cigarette. It was him. and he. Great Bolognese.