Those Good Lads. Another Championship Of Normality

Our championship has ended. Six months, 22 matches, many 90 minutes of “normality”. That kind of where, when you go out on the pitch, you are kitted out like “them”, you’re good like “them”, sometimes even better. And like “them” you want to test yourself, to put the ball in the back of the net, to celebrate your goal with a roar. Like “them”, “normal” lads, “normal” life. Like “them”, when the match is over lunch is ready, and the family that welcomes you, asks: “how did it go?”, and they give you a pat on the shoulder if you conceded five goals. che quando entriamo in campo sei vestito come “loro”, sei bravo come “loro”, a volte anche di più. E come “loro” hai voglia di metterti in gioco, di infilare la palla tra i pali, di gridare goal a squarciagola. Come “loro”, ragazzi “normali”, vita “normale”. Come “loro”, che quando finisce la partita forse hai il pranzo pronto, e una famiglia che ti accoglie, ti chiede: “come è andata?”, ti da’ una pacca sulla spalla se hai preso 5 goal.

Our family, the real one, is lost, voices far away on the other side of the sea. Our family, the one which takes the pitch every Sunday, grows in number daily, and is enriched by many new souls, always with new smiles.

We make a note of the points, every year. Ephemeral, inconsistent points. A league table with just one number: zero.
The only points accumulated are those on the odometer, away game after away game. This year it says 900, a great victory.
900 like that journey, like that book, like that film, of men and women out on the ocean looking for fortune on the other side of the sea, and when the music ends and you look around you are in a new world, with new spaces, new hopes. But romantic adventures are the stuff of films; real life is made up of denials, of lawyers, of unknown cities, of parallel paths, the wait for that crazy piece of paper, a passport photo and a name, a new birth, which cancels your status as a “non-person” and makes you visible to society, to the world.

The Fair Play Cup is firmly in our hands. Those few points are the only ones that appear by our name, and the fewer the better. They talk of a parallel championship, that involves more than 40 teams. And yes! The table says it, we are good lads. Well behaved, disciplined. The same good lads that on the news, with fingers pointed against them, are the evil of the world. Just one minute spent together with them and the solidity of the media becomes like sand slipping through your fingers. The same good lads, who, when they meet you on the bus and you check their passports because “black” is an ambiguous colour, and you, so as not to make a mistake…better to be think ahead
. Because from childhood the black man was hiding in the dark corner, ready to punish you if you were naughty.

But there is no league table which can contain our greatest triumph , that of every day. Brick upon brick, made up of different colours, of diversity. Walls made of a multiform jumble, solid on the foundations of our house.

(Antonio Marcello) Note: The original title of this story was “Quei Bravi Ragazzi”. This is the Italian translation of the Scorsese film “Goodfellas”. In the context of this story, the Scorsese title would have been inappropriate, so the English title used is a direct translation of quei bravi ragazzi – ‘those good lads’.