The former national coach told Corriere della Sera of his farewell to football: “I had to put a wall between me and that scary feeling. I follow football, but I never go back to the bench”
“I needed to get away from that frenetic, somewhat schizophrenic life. It was a bewitched moment: the empty stadiums, a feeling of loneliness that enveloped me. It was all empty, everything rumbled too much. I had to put a wall between me and that silence Now I’m very well, I always follow football, with passion. But I haven’t even thought for a second of going back to coaching. That’s it, that’s it.” The former Fiorentina coach, and former national coach, Cesare Prandelli tells the “Corriere della Sera” how and why he decided not to experience football firsthand anymore.
Breaking point
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Long, touching, instructive is the interview granted to Walter Veltroni. Here is the precise moment in which he received the signal that it was time to say enough: “During a Sampdoria-Fiorentina, in February 2021, we were dominating the match then, towards the seventieth minute, Quagliarella scored for them. At that moment I tried a frightening feeling of emptiness. I was out of breath for ten seconds. I think I know the taste of adrenaline but I’ve never had an experience like this. A black emptiness, a whirlpool of nothingness. Perhaps too much love for Fiorentina , the desire to overdo it, to get her out of trouble. I spoke to people who know how to handle these stressful situations and they advised me to disconnect for a bit. They gave me this example: it’s like a surgeon who intervenes in the operating room all the days but a family member arrives and he stops. The surgeon will no longer be able to operate. A feeling like this, of too much affection, too much love, too much responsibility took my breath away. It was the signal”.
June 6, 2023 (change June 6, 2023 | 11:25 am)
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