Parliamo Brady. Cian O' Mahony visits Liam Brady at Sampdoria Genova
Liam Brady steps off the UC Sampdoira bus into Hotel Cassalli, Cesena. Seven o'clock on Saturday evening, March 12. Irish superstar in Italy clocking in for another weekend away from home keeping the people happy.
Cesena is a town of 90,000 people in the province of Emilia-Romagna. It's nine miles inland from the Adriatic Sea and a little south of Ravenna - capital of the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD, famous for its early Christian Art and fabulous mosaics.
Cesena Football Club are third from the bottom of the Italian Serie A (the first division). With just eight games to play they are getting worried. The immensely wealthy Napoli, in the doldrums all season and in second last place, have been showing signs of recovery recently. They are just one point behind Cesena. And Cesena are in a slump. Only three points in seven games.
Sampdoria Genova, the club which Brady joined at the start of the season, took off in sensational fashion. Fresh out of Serie B they won their first three games - against big fish Juventus, Inter Milan and Roma. Since then their results have been solid rather than spectacular. They are in eighth position.
Their main problem has been finding the back of the net. Not a new problem in Italy to be sure, but they have not been helped by the protracted absence of star forward Trevor Francis through injury since the third game. Francis made his long-awaited comeback just two games ago.
Today Samp are worried because six of their first team squad are missing - two suspended, four injured. Brady will be playing. He manages to stay out of trouble and has only missed one game all season. The first thing I see entering the stadium is a large Irish tricolour being waved at the far end of the ground. There is also a huge flag in the Sampdoria colours edged with green, white and yellow with a Union Jack in the middle. A long banner in blue, white, red and black inscribed "The Gunners". (Brady's performances for Arsenal against Juventus in the semi-finals of the 1980 Cup Winners' Cup attracted the interest of the great Italian club in him. Four months later he was playing in Turin.)
Cesena's star player is the Austrian winger/striker Walter Schachner. At the opposite end of the ground there's a banner printed "Weisschwarz Brigaden" – the Black and White Brigade - in a sort of Austro-Hungarian horror-movie lettering. The twenty black and white flags fluttering opposite the main stand would look well on Baron Dracula's castle.
The players come out of the tunnel just before the kickoff. Brady wears the No 10. To be given the 10 shirt in Italy is a sort of distinction in itself. It's usually given to the man that matters most in midfield. Other famous players who wear the No 10 here include Brazil's Dirceu (Verona), France's Platini (Juventus) and the Italians Antognoni (Fiorentina), Beccalossi (Inter) and di Bartolomei (Roma).
A blaring trumpet with violent vibrato is played over loudspeaker system after each team is announced. Large clouds of smoke. Flamtorches. Kick-off. Cesena storm from the start and lay seige to Sampdiora's goal. But their play is more inspired by anxiety than intelligence. Because of the injuries Francis is playing in a withdrawn midfield position. But with a quarter of an hour gone he turns up to head Samp into the lead.
Cesena want to get a cup-tie atmosphere going and throw the fat in the fire. But Brady has the tactical astuteness and the ability to slow up the game and take the pan off the fire. The game suffers as a spectacle. Cesena are trying madly to blow up the balloon. Sampdoria keep taking it off them, give it to Brady - and he just lets the air out again.
Brady indulges in a piece of Italian theatricals after a free goes against him by kicking the ball away to the disgust of the home crowd. Fouls are the order of the day as soon as a dangerous situation develops. No one seems to be in the least surprised when they happen. The only time the yellow card is pulled is when Scanziani protests to the referee after Brady is taken down and he doesn't even whistle for a free.
Three minutes into the second half Scanziani gets a shot at goal and the game is effectively finished. 2-0 for Sampdoria. Schachner looks needle-sharp but he gets little constructive support and is well marked by Pellegrini (member of the Italian under-21 team) who is quick, tough Incisive. The fans give the Cesena players a warm reception as they come off the pitch.
Napoli have beaten torino 1-0 and are now one point in front of Cesena. There is a respectful, funereal quiet in the press room. Everyone thinks that Cesena will go down. Football is a matter of the utmost seriousness in Italy, so it follows that relegation is regarded as a fate somewhat worse than death. There are two camera crews waiting to film the interviews. Maybe thirty journalists.
Bradyy carries himself with the assurance of a man who knows he's one of the best in the business. I am asked to act as an interpreter by a local television man. It should be the other way round. To my ignorant ears Brady's Italian appears to be excellent.
Next day travelling north-east on the five-hour journey to Genova I strike up conversation with a woman and her twelve year old son. When I tell the kid I am going to see Brady his face lights up with excitement. Juventus encompasses both the romance of the old Manchester United and the success of the new Liverpool that his English - and Irish - counterpart dreams about. And Brady helped Juventus to two titles in the past two years ....
On Wednesday morning, driven by Renzo Parodi to Sampdoria's training-ground. Renzo is a doctor of law and sports journalist at the big Genovese newspaper n Secolo XIX. The training-ground is situated at Bogliasco, a village on the outskirts of Genova. The setting is dramatically beautiful. It's closed in by mountains: one wooded sloping down from the west, another towering tall and bare to the north, the sea not very far away to the south.
The players are working out with a game on a large gravelled court. The turf is too soggy to play on after yesterday's rain. Guerrini, the giant sweeper, goes in high on Brady. He shouts angrily at him. The giant shouts back and Brady pushes him away with two hands into his chest. Afterwards Brady explains they were only messing.
"You don't think I'd tangle with someone that size?" Nonetheless it's clear that Brady is the bossman in the Sampdoria team hierarchy. Him and Francis. His experience as a player and his world-class ability have earned him that position.
Is it true that you suggested to the club to get Trevor Francis?
No. I didn't suggest anything. I was advising them to get Graham Rix because I didn't know Trevor would be available and I knew Graham would be. Beside the fact that Graham is a friend of mine I rate him very highly as a player. But the President wanted a forward and then they asked me about Trevor. So I said, yes, he's a world-class player. I just verified what they knew already .
[Neither the coach, players or president wanted Brady to leave Juventus. But Gianni Agnelli, head of the Fiat empire and Juventus's Mr Money-Bags, went off to France and bought Michel Platini on his own initiative. Juventus had already signed a contract with Polish star Zbigniew Boniek. Only two foreigners are allowed in each club, so the Irishman, whose contract had just expired, had to pack his bags suddenly to everyone's surprise.]
Why did Platini take your place at Juventus? Did they want a new face, a new big name to please the fans?
Well, I think Agnelli is the type of man who likes to be amused when he's watching football. He'd seen two years of me, so he probably fancied a change. I think that's what it boiled down to in the end. There's no disgrace in being replaced by Platini. He really is a great player. It wasn't the trainer's or president's decision to replace me. But anyway it seems to be working out okay for them. Platini is playing very well, he's playing brilliantly in fact. It's the other lad (Boniek) who is not playing well.
Whats happening with Boniek? Is he unhappy? Or just out of form?
Its difficult. It's hard enough for one foreigner to settle in straight away. It must be even more difficult for two. The journalists write highly of one and criticise the other and that must create bad feeling. They try to do that here. Journalists try to cause problems and eventually when they come out, they're there to seize on them.
How is your wife getting on? She must be a bit lonely over here?
No, no. Not lonely at all. When Juventus decided to get Platini it was obviously finished for me at Turin. I didn't know whether to go back to England or not. But my wife said "no, I want to stay". We both like it here.
[Liam's wife Sarah comes from London. She worked as a teacher in the first two years at Turin. The Bradys became proud young parents in January when Sarah gave birth to a baby daughter, Ella, on the eve of the Juventus-Sampdoria game.]
Trevor Francis is waiting good-humouredly, leaning up against the fence. "The spaghetti is getting cold!" It's time for the two superstars to have their Wednesday lunch further up the mountain. The motorway to Turin is snowed over and there are dangerous patches of ice. On the train there's a man reading a lengthy preview of Juventus-Aston Villa in one of the papers.
There are three daily Italian sports newspapers which are seventy percent devoted to every fact, figure, quotation, analysis and prediction imaginable that has anything to do with soccer. And there is more soccer writing in a general news daily than you get in a month of Sundays in any English-language paper. The Stadio Communale is packed full to the brim. Three-quarters of the ground is uncovered and 45,000 people have been sitting and standing in the rain for over two hours before the game even begins. There was a queue 7,000 people long when the first lot of tickets went on sale four weeks before. There was minor rioting and the police had to intervene.
The atmosphere is joyful, electric. The fans can hardly contain their excitement and just before the teams walk out of the tunnel there is a premature ejaculation of fireworks lighting the sky. Smoke spreads across the entire pitch.
Juventus are wonderful. They restore one's faith in the game. Their victory is a bodyblow to the Age of Dourness. The triple pillars of the British game - Blood, Sweat and Tears - are sent tumbling. Thought, technique and artistry triumph over British Brawn and Bottle.
At half time the Italian Presiden, Mr Pertini, rings up to say he is enjoying himself hugely. Lantitni scores two goals. Agnelli, In New York to undergo heart surgery, sends back a message: "My heart says ‘thank you' to Platini".
The main practice game of the week takes place on Thursday afternoon. The game is between the full Sampdoira first team and the youth team strengthened by the first reserves. There are cars parked everywhere. About 1,500 people have turned up to watch the game, including two busloads of school children being given a special treat. When Francis was recovering there were sometimes as many as 4,000 up to see how much progress he was making.
There are four pressmen on the terrace over the dressing-rooms, watching keenly to see if injuries have healed and whether there are any personnel or positional changes to be reported. Journalists come up every day, hanging around, looking for interviews, sniffing for stories. It can't be easy to write about the same team every day and it's understandable that some take the cheap way out and create scandals which get the players' backs up.Renzo reckons he has already done thirty interviews with Francis. And the Englishman has still only playeed six games for the club!
The crowd applauds appreciatively, almost politely, every time something good happens. Francis scores three times. "Is that all?" asks a girl with unusual irony.
When it's over, trainer Ulivieri storms in, refusing to talk to anyone: he has no time for the players and no time for the press. Finally he is prevailed upon to do a short television interview. He has no time for the players and no time for the press. Finally he is prevailed upon to do a short television interview. He is very unhappy about the players. Their physical condition is wretched, they don't want to work, they watched Juventus on television last night and now suddenly they all think they can play football. Melodramatic exit. Slammed door.
Brady is also disgusted. "You can't learn anything from practice games like that. The difference in level between ourselves and the young lads is too great. You have four options instead of the single one you would have in a real game. And then you usually end up making the wrong decision. You get angrier and it gets even worse."
Brady poses for a photo with a large group of kids and is cheered and applauded as he walks away. For some reason the Italians like to pronounce the full names of the stars aloud all the time. "Li-am Bray-di", Tray-vor Fran-cis".
More scenes from Italian life on the way to the Irish star's house as Liam engages another motorist in a shouting match. "There's a line there which says ‘STOP!'" The first contest is to see who can get the car window rolled down the quickest. After that, whoever shouts the loudest wins the argument. As Brady steps out to press the button which opens the electronic gate in front of the avenue leading to his house a woman with two small daughters asks for his autograph.
The Bradys live at Nervi, Genoa's Dalkey. They have a spacious apartment in a large villa which faces out towards the bay. Palm trees at the bottom of the garden. They furnished it themselves. There are books about Ireland, history, a biography of Mussolini. The video and TV set in the corner. Outside the Bay of Genoa looks stunning in the blue twilight. Huge and sweeping, the lights twinkling on the ships moored out to sea.
Renzo, the journalist, has recovered and takes me to a restaurant beside the football stadium run by a friend of his. There is a framed collage of programmes, newspaper headlines, tickets and photos commemorating Italy's famous Wembley victory over England in 1973, when Capello scored the only goal four minutes from time. The proprietor is a fanatical Sampdoria man and wants to hear all the latest news about the team. The club president is on trial that very day and he is worried about the consequences a negative verdict might have for the club. The president of Sampdoria is Mr Paolo Mantovani.
Mantovani is the one who holds the silver purse-strings for Sampadoria. He has poured money into the club. Mantovani is one of the wealthiest men in Italy. Only he's not in Italy. He's in Switzerland. Like every self-respecting multi-millionaire, Mantovani's story is of the well-known rags-to-riches variety. Twenty-five years ago he hadn't a bean, just like all the rest of us. But he made his contacts and gradually climbed his way up the slippery pole of the oil business. He became a personal friend of the Shah of Iran and some of the most powerful emirs of Kuwait. When oil prices shot up after the Gulf War in late 1973 his friendships made it possible for him to continue to buy crude oil at pre-war prices. He amassed a vast fortune.
Mantovani was a Sampdoria director for a number of years, but with that sort of money it was inevitable that he would end up as club president. He might well have been the man Pink Floyd used to sing about - "think I'll buy myself a football team". Mantovani did just that. The club promoted from Serie B immediately after he became president. Then Brady and Francis were snapped up.
Mantovani has a very weak heart. Watching the team was very bad for his health. So he went abroad. But there was another reason for his self imposed exile. The Italian government charged Mantovani with various criminal offences. The first of these was that he smuggled a little matter of five hundred million pounds out of the country illegally. That particular trial is now reaching its conclusion.
The president took up residence in Switzerland. He can't see his beloved team, but he keeps in as close contact with them as twentieth century technology allows. Every Tuesday he watches the video tape of the complete Sunday game. And he makes long phone-calls to enquire after every detail of each player's personal well-being, how training is going, how injured players are responding to treatment, what problems he can help to solve. It was Mantovani who ordered Irish flags to be bought and fixed on poles round the stadium in honour of Brady. It is not unusual fqr him to make up to five lengthy phone-calls to the club in a single day.
The fans of FG Genoa - the other club in Serie A from Genoa and Sampdoria's great rivals - are waiting for Mantovani to be locked up in Marassi.
Marassi is Genoa's prison. It is situated right beside the football stadium. If inside is anything like what it looks from the outside then it must bea pretty ghastly place in which to live - a real relic of the nineteenth century, a
small improvement on Devil's Island. .
On Sundays the prisoners whose cells face the stadium are up at their barred windows looking out to see what is happening during the game. The only problem is they can see the fans and the flags, but not the players on the pitch. An armed prison-guard whistles down from his turret at a pair of young teenage girls walking by, linked arm in arm.
On Saturday the headlines on Il Secolo posters across the city read: Mantovani Condannato. The court have found him guilty on the charge of smuggling. He has been sentenced to a two and a half year imprisonment. The next trial will investigate his alleged tax evasions. Mantovani's reaction to the verdict is emotional. He says he is going to come to Genoa next day to see his beloved team play against Napoli.
His lawyers are thrown into a complete flap. Technically he cannot yet be arrested. The court still has togo through two more formal legalistic procedures before that is possible. But it is certain that if he crossed the Italian border his passport would be confiscated and he would be stuck in Italy until the arrest warrant came through. Even more dramatically: the doctors do not believe his heart would survive the excitement of watching Sampapria-Napoli in the flesh.
So What's going to happen? Will he be coming or not? Renzo doesn't like what goes on beneath the belt of Italy's geographical waistline. "For me, Italy stops at Rome. Naples is riddled with drugs ... crawling with prostitution ... " Renzo draws his face in a grimace of extreme loathing.
He doesn't think Napoli will get relegated. Last year, Genoa needed a draw on the last day to avoid the drop, but with four minutes to go they were 1-0 behind. Then Napoli goalkeeper Castellini (one of the best) "accidentally" threw the ball over the goal-line while "attempting" a kick-out. The corner was taken and Genoa struck ball inside the near post without notable resistance from the Napoli defence. The Napoli fans applauded thunderously. That goal meant that AC Milan went down and Genoa stayed up.
Now Genoa will be in a position to return the favour when they meet Napoli towards the end of the season. If Napoli need a draw, mark an X on the coupon. If they need a win, mark a Napoli win.
Of course it's easy for us to laugh at the intensity and corruption which is part and parcel of Italian soccer. We are a long way off. The truth is that Napoli football club has a vital social function in the life of tbe city. Out of a population of 1% million, there are 300,000 people unemployed. The city bleeds with massive emigration. There were dreadful earthquakes in the area just two years ago. And Vesuvius smoulders in the background, wondering when to time his next eruption. (Scientists predict a new eruption is very much on the cards.)
The football club brings a glamour which helps offset these grim realities If Napoli goes down, the dreams of golden stars will fade.
Napoli are nervous. They are suffering fro a bad case of away team relegation-cramps. Ruud Krol is always on the ball, but he can't release it. He's faced with a choice of cul-de-sac solutions as no one runs for him into space. Brady is on song. He often emerges with the ball at his feet just when you think he has lost it. More important, he's drawing out the lines of combat and Samp are really playing well.
The game is much too tough, but the referee ignores his duty to protect the players. Three players chopped in two. The referee doesn't even blink. Then Scanziani is caught with a boot in the face, just outside the box. Brady touches to Francis. 1-0 to Samp. It is a pleasure to see these two great players combining together, finding each other, picking up the signals with an intuition which cannot be learned. You would think they've played for years together. This is their seventh competitive game in the same team.
Brady takes part in the move of the match though he doesn't actually touch the ball, directing Francis to bypass him and hit Renica on the touchline first-time. The leftback cracks it across on the volley and Castellini has to pounce backwards to haul Mancini's effort off the line.
Baby-face Bobby Mancini, the 18-year old tipped as Paolo Rossi's future partner in the Italian attack, is having an anonymous game. Francis is having lumps kicked out of him and feeling his ("good") right leg. His greyhound spurts are less darting. The Napoli defence gains composure and begins to give Krol the options he was looking for in the first half. Napoli are back in the game. With eleven minutes to go they equalise at the far post from a free-kick.
It's difficult to see out the match, as a supporter, hysterical with rage and disappointment, tries to climb over the fence to smash another man who has insulted him. It takes four policemen, blocking my view, to restrain him and he's still fuming after the final whistle goes. I've never seen anything like it.
Brady is hauled off to do a television interview, then a second television interview, then a radio interview, then he's cornered by the journalists. He takes it all in his stride, showing lots of patience. The game is longer than just one hour and a half ....
Six more games and Liam will have completed his third season in Italy. Holiday plans? "My best friend is getting married in June, so I'll be in Dublin for that. I hope to fit in a bit of golf and maybe I'll pop up to Donegal to see Finn Harps' chairman Fran Fields, who is a good friend of mine. But really, living here I don't have to go anywhere for a holiday, with the seaside more or less on the doorstep. I think I'll take advantage of that."
And what of President Mantovani?
In the heel of the hunt he never made it to the match. His lawyers and doctors persuaded him to stay away from Genoa against his better judgement. But you can be sure of one thing He was watching the video on Tuesday.