A 1984 Italian movie chronicles the tail-end of the innuendo-led era and, though it has a few dated scenes, it helped set an agenda in its own way
Before Mike Bassett, there was Oronzo Canà. The former was a fictional English football manager, played by Ricky Tomlinson, who was overpromoted into coaching the national team in a 2001 comedy that became a cult classic. The latter: a fictional Italian football manager, played by Lino Banfi, who was overpromoted into coaching a Serie A team in a 1984 comedy that went the same way.
Both make up some tiny part of my cultural heritage, and yet the truth is that until recently I knew only one of them well. Neither parent actually cared much for football, and the small VHS collection we did have seemed mostly to reflect my Italian dad’s enthusiasm for Goldie Hawn.
Perhaps he saw L’Allenatore nel Pallone, but it certainly passed me by. I came to know it much later, in the pages of Gazzetta dello Sport. If there is one truly striking thing about Banfi’s movie, it is how often it is referenced – even today – by the Italian sporting press.
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