Here is the edited highlights of a fixture from my last book. Signori's stay at Sampdoria was short and miserable -- indeed Samp have now tumbled back into Serie B. But before that happened Beppe went to Bologna to begin to revive his career, just as Baggio had done. While he's not quite been that successful, he's certainly recovered much of his grace and poise and, thankfully, is scoring wonderful goals once more. As Ray Wilkins memorably declared, "Signori has all the tricks up his book."

Beppe

"I believed in the cupid
I thought I'd kiss you for all my life
I guess I'm just a little stupid
now I'm going back to Rome"
Frank Black

Signori, man whose name confirms his status,
Guiseppe -- Joseph -- player without fuss,
a footballer who's filled with that afflatus
that English footballers can just discuss,
but Italy's as full of as a plate is
of verdure from a region stuffed with suss
and savour: Lazio, a name that seems
best fitted to the better of Rome's teams.

So why not raise a glass of white so blond
it catches like his beard, his hunch of hair
as he swoops down on passes, eels beyond
the heavy red of Roma's backs: he'll dare
a shot that skims across the keeper's pond
and makes him seems all frog. And let me cheer
his dance above the all-embracing dirt
and praise the very colour of his shirt.

It's neither sky nor sea -- too pastel, more
the blue tone of those little swimming pools
they build beside their villas, tempting for
the would-be Anglo-Tuscan, he who drools
for all Italia but must just explore
the emptied wallet common to such fools.
That wily paleness is the colour of
the shirt he wore for Zeman and for Zoff

-- and Erickson, but now my story spins,
becomes Shakespearean, gains Terentian slants,
with the exchanging of two Calcio twins.
For from Sampdoria Erickson transplants
Mancini, fifteen years the furious prince
of Genoa, marcher from the field in tant-
rums, back-heel master, forward whose huge grace
means only he could take Signori's place.

This Aztec cut left Samp without a soul
and Lazio with forwards by the yard --
the six-yard box, that is, where, boot and jowl,
they wheeled, bobbed and collided till the hard
law of Fortuna meant another's goal
gave Beppe's captaincy the reddest card:
embarrassed squirming on the has-been's bench
with just his buttocks and his teeth to clench.

I love the way he lost, laconically
handing back three goal leads, as though the like
of Lazio don't need defensive play.
I love the way he took one step to strike
so no-one could predict a penalty.
I love the way he would refuse to hike,
but just mooched round that frantic moshing box
then scored, or held up games to adjust his socks.

In short I see I loved my would-be self --
in shorts, and poured in an Italian mould --
but still my kind of idiot, neither Guelph
nor Ghibelline, not really, but controlled
by one huge need: be loved or hit the shelf;
excel but never show -- and don't be sold.
It drives you like a duty if in common
with Beppe you can recognise this daemon.

Be loved, not be admired or famous, be
the one who's held to hold the game together,
not even by their conscious mind, but see
the way the team, your family, all tether
themselves to you, or gather in your lee
as though you sheltered them from ugly weather,
like something without failings they could know:
what could he do on losing this but go?

And here's the strangest twist of the stilleto
for who should need him more just then than Samp?
Still mourning their Mancini's allegretto --
that galvaniser of the park whose ramp-
ant glance itself could kick balls through the net-o.
And so you flew north, to ease Sampdoria's cramp.
Heart-swopping stuff, though neither of you clicked,
both being footballs fate herself has kicked.

So, goal-less in Genoa, has your art
deserted you? How does the bella game
look now, Ovidian Beppe, forced apart
from Nesta and Gottardi, not one name
you know to slide that nutmeg you could dart
behind defenders to convert and tame:
the ball a pagan only you have blessed,
a comet being shown its proper nest.

Bereft of Boksic, tragic in attack,
for one whole season by your twisting side,
tall and direct where you seemed small and slack,
but while you struck his every kick went wide --
he did the same at Juve till, bought back,
he hit a sudden match of shot and stride,
and now, when you are gone, his every week's
a fusion of his chutzpah and technique.

And last there's Per-Luigi, never dux
while Boksic and Mancini are on form,
but still the stealer at that breathless crux
of goals that push your old team from the swarm
in which Sampdoria flounders. There's no \i pax
romana that can heal your parting from
a striking partner so insightful that
you seemed to land on four feet like one cat.

And now Favalli's led them to a cup
the lees of which you must drink every night:
it is the case that other men pick up
those trophies that we once assumed we might;
they live in places where we thought to stop,
but now can see propelled us on a flight
without a destination we would name,
so we say "Ave failure, vale fame."

If you don't believe me about those goals, you can see them here:

http://www.raisport.rai.it/mcalcio/989a/c00028.htm

And if you've ever wanted to know why Bologna's called "Il Grosso", try this site:

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~pes1/docsbol1.html

A neat chip back to gli Azzurri

A thundering volley back to Obsessions

If you came from Biography, you may be expecting to see something of The Laurelude