Di Bartolomei and a blow that did not affect love: the farewell 30 years ago

May 30th, the same date on which ten years earlier his Roma had been beaten by Liverpool

ROME – Can two painful events give the idea of a love that a man, even before a footballer, feels for a team, for an environment, for the fans and for the ball? Yes. Especially if that man is called Agostino Di Bartolomei. An apparently introverted, serious man, with a dark expression, but in reality “caciarone, sweet and ironic” compared to a character that “those who didn’t know you” had created for him”, recalls his son Luca in the introduction of ‘L ‘Last game’, a book by Giovanni Bianconi and Andrea Salerno. And also in love, Di Bartolomei, even before the ball of his Roma, the one he would never have left, not even after saying goodbye to football, but which with pain he chose not to keep by his side. A strong pain in itself, which the reserved Agostino did not hide on the pitch when in Milan, the Rossoneri side, which he reached together with the maestro Nils Liedholm in 1984, he angrily celebrated the goal scored against his Roma in the match won 2-1 . And then in the second leg of that season, when the public did not forgive him for that celebration, while on the pitch he almost got into a fight first with his lifelong friend Bruno Conti, after a hard contact, and then with Ciccio Graziani who had intervened to defend him. A few months earlier Di Bartolomei had been among the eleven who took to the field from the 1st minute in the historic Champions Cup final, which previously was only accessible to winners of their own championship (precisely from ‘Campioni’), who Roma played in their Olympic stadium in front of the Liverpool of Rush, Souness and Grobbelaar.

A prohibitive match for the Giallorossi, against a team capable of winning that trophy three times out of as many finals played. After the 1-1 draw continued until penalties, Di Bartolomei was the first to appear from the spot. Without fear, without batting an eyelid, the fate of his Roma was up for grabs, taking that ball that had become a boulder, kicked together with an entire city behind the eccentric opposing goalkeeper. But it didn’t help, because with Righetti he scored the only two penalties for Roma on that cursed evening of May 30, 1984. And the Cup went to the others. With Roma ‘Diba’ or ‘Ago’ played his last real match in the Giallorossi, the rest was a drag towards the end of a relationship that should have been eternal. Nils Liedholm defined him as a “homemade Brazilian”, thanks to the powerful shot he had, as well as his extraordinary touch of the ball and football intelligence. The Swedish ‘The Baron’ reinvented him as a libero, a role that had disappeared like that romantic and soulful football, taking advantage of his touch, throw and football intelligence with which he managed to make up for the lack of speed in his legs. In Rome, which in the 1980s was the protagonist of epic clashes with Juventus, Di Bartolomei proved himself and confirmed himself as a leader. Silent, it’s true, but a leader. “He was our captain, our leader – Bruno Conti loves to repeat, he has done it even in these last few days, he has always done it, he will never stop repeating it – I got a lot of advice from him. He was a great man”.

After the painful separation from Roma, he played for another six years, dividing them equally between three teams: in addition to Milan he wore the shirts of Cesena and especially Salernitana which he led to a historic promotion to Serie B. After his farewell playing football, it was 1990, he moved to Castellabate, the municipality of origin of his wife Marisa, where he opened a football school that bore his name, with the aim of teaching the little ones that clean football also existed , made of values. But in those years the pain in Agostino Di Bartolomei evidently became stronger and stronger. One can only hypothesize because he kept everything inside, he was certainly not the type to express it. So only after that morning of May 30, 1994, exactly 10 years after Roma-Liverpool and the end of his history with Roma, when he said goodbye to the world by shooting himself in the heart with a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, we understood the malaise, pain and drama of a man who was advised by his friend Bruno (Conti, ed.) to have patience, but who suffered when he saw his projects “crumbling”. A man who felt “closed in a hole” and who suffered pain that had started 10 years earlier. And that ball, “my beloved ball” that felt increasingly distant. His beloved ball, symbol of a football that was already changing and in which there was no space for him. And then Roma and its fans who on that night against Liverpool did not want to disappoint.
But today, wherever he is, he will once again feel that unconditional love, with all due respect for the other fans strong> who were able to admire and love him, from the Giallorossi public towards him that no gunshot could ever end.