It's a difficult task for me today. Telling a Sunday afternoon at the stadium. Ardua because talking about football in Italy involves a great responsibility. So much is written and so much is said. But perhaps, I say to myself, it is precisely thanks to my being "foreigner" in an experience that is customary for many people that could allow me to offer a perhaps naive look, but of stimulus - I hope - to a broader reflection. No analysis at all, but sensations. It's the only thing I can tell you about. What did my eyes see and what did my emotional part record? That is the question that I have left for a few days. And that found an answer.
Good morning as a sign of efficiency
Let's start from the beginning. I was a guest in the grandstand with lunch in the Boniperti Club. From the moment we entered the parking lot with the car to the moment I was just a few meters from the camp, everything was perfect. There was no traffic jam to park, a first check at the entrance with a white badge, a second check with a gold badge at the entrance of the foyer, a third check to get an orange bracelet tied to the wrist and finally the walk to the dining room. At each door, hallway, room change, there were the stewards who in a non-invasive way controlled the bracelet and cordially greeted. Too much good morning ", the boy who was part of my group tells me. But at least - I thought - they are nice and smiling stewards. They put you at ease. Lunch was quick, a buffet without tail. Appetizer, two first courses, a second course, dessert, wine and coffee. Then, the hour is approaching, and away towards the pitch.
The ritual of ancient times
Here the sensations change. As my eyes enter a wide-angle view of the grandstands that surround me at 360 degrees, I think of the legacy that the Romans left us. These amphitheatres are perfect containers for a diverse and entertaining people in need of entertainment: loud music, crowded fan curves, giant flags waving and locals. The teams' announcement arrives: informational tone for the opponents - that is, names pronounced without particular emotion - and screaming as the names of theuventino players scroll on the screen. A first stridor, and not because you don't have to be partisan, but I don't think that the strength of a speaker lies in the volume of his voice. It is not screaming that vehicles emotions. Then, all standing up, the hymn echoes the scarves waving. The stadium ready to start. This was the moment in which I looked at the pitch and almost with a metaphorical gesture I wiped out from my mind everything that football brings with it today: speeches at the bar, controversy, money, money, lots of money, footballers - characters chased by paparazzi and veline -, and then speculation on the sale of rights, hatred for this sport of many and the partisan passion of many others, sponsors, economic interests, sometimes political and thousandlablabla. I looked at the center on the green field and I wanted to cancel all these "accessories" to return to the root, to a landscape in which the intervention of man is removed to let the contours of an original morphology re-emerge.
And what remained there in the middle of the grassy and wet lawn was really just one thing: the game. The ritual of a peaceful battle stuck within the rules. The ritual. That is what I was thinking about. We sit here sitting to watch our heroes fighting each other. We spectators, their actors are both necessary to this rite. And a thrill: the emotion of waiting.
The instant before the explosion
I felt the true and pure emotion exactly in that instant. Shortly before the referee's whistle sounded. Then, the game started and the world exploded. And I was reminded of a quote from Kandinsky, which I think is a nice similarity. Behold, he once said that in his painting he tried to represent an emotion in the instant before it exploded. A controlled emotion made eternal in his stop just before the outbreak. Those minutes before the whistle for me were this: an trepidation towards something that will happen. The immense strength of waiting. Retention of emotions. Hope, dream.
Then the game starts, the explosion happens, the canvas fills itself without leaving more empty spaces. The mystery vanishes. Sooner or later you will also know who won and who lost.
Traces disappeared
In the end, we won. Yet everything goes back to normal. And then I saw myself back, get up from the gallery, walk towards the exit, return with a smile to the friendly goodbye of the stewards. Get out, get into the car, go home.
Almost as if nothing had happened. As if that energy full of expectation had never been there. As if that emotion were an earthquake, perhaps just a dream, maybe something I invented. Of course, I'm also excited for the goals, but when I went home I felt that something was missing.
But what? Everything was perfect, efficient, two goals, order, politeness, friendliness.
I could say that I lacked the global experience. I missed something that could hook inside me that initial feeling and keep it tied inside me even in the next one. A sort of emotional memory. It was just a moment and that moment disappeared. My day at the stadium was beautiful, beautiful, but it didn't seduce me with that initial thrill. It is as if I had experienced something normal, not something extraordinary.
The emotions legacy
I know that for a football fan the game is everything, but are we sure it is enough? And for those like me? What does this experience consist of? If, in fact, in addition to the impeccable services, in all this my route, from the parking lot to the restaurant, to the grandstand and back to the parking lot every moment had been an opportunity of experience. If when I entered the Boniperti Club I felt moved because I was myself staged as a spectator, guest and witness of a game that can only be unique and unrepeatable. Had they already been told the waiting time. And if inside the stadium besides the game there had been an attention to me spectator with information and services, that were not only the impeccable reception. I can't fail to mention Steve Jobs, who, when he decided to open the Apple Store, set himself the goal of making people a little happier on leaving the store than when he came in. I'm sure the fans are at the stadium, but is a stadium really just a place for fans? What if Juve had lost? Is it not possible to think of an experience that goes beyond the match? Which involves the viewer before and after? Where does lunch also become an experience? We were all there, but we were all disconnected from each other. We were silent, passive spectators, observers. These are active only within 90 minutes of the game. Of course our voices were heard, but for me it was as if we were simple extras, anonymous individuals. We, as spectators, did not have a narrative that placed us, too, at the center of the show. Let it turn us into actors together with the players. We cared for us in an impeccable way, but we didn't think of ourselves as people who have a dream within themselves, and who want to live a unique and unforgettable day when they enter the stadium.
To paraphrase an advertisement: there was no narrative for which a game is forever.
That you can then extend it also to an event is forever. Or at least, from an experience point of view, it should be. Forever.
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The true power of the spectator