Ciao Antonio, ciao days in the sun

By: Stephen | December 21st, 2010

When Alex Ferguson ended the Manchester United careers of David Beckham, or Ruud van Nistelrooy, or Jaap Stam, or Paul Ince, no-one saw it coming. Not the media, not the fans, and probably not even the players themselves. They were all shipped out to clubs abroad (also no coincidence – he didn’t want them coming back to haunt him) with barely enough time to register a bemused look on their faces. That’s how you know that no player is bigger than a club. And that’s how you know you have a boss whose only interest is the well-being of the club.

When Riccardo Garrone began his one-man crusade to show the world that Antonio Cassano is not bigger than Sampdoria last October, he went about it in exactly the opposite way. Media from all over Italy (as if the world cared) set up camp in the ridiculous Sampdoria circus as Garrone huffed and puffed about principles and pride. What he utterly failed to comprehend was that he was sending out the very clear message that Antonio Cassano, due to all his efforts to prove the contrary, was, in fact, much, much bigger than the club, and that Sampdoria are nothing more than a small-minded provincial club with a pompous, self-important president suffering from a enormous dose of hubris.

The saddest thing of all is that Cassano is Samp. We love him. We love players like him. We loved Mancini and Flachi, and there will be another hot-headed fantasista before too long for us to worship. When you think of Cassano, you don’t think of the Galletto on the Bari shirt; it was always inevitable he would leave his hometown. You don’t think of his tantrums in Rome, or his diet of pastries and women in Madrid. You think of the Blucerchiati, how Cassano plays when he is loved; you think of that impish smile; of him being battered by Genoa in the Derby della Lanterna and not reacting once; of that game against Palermo in 2007 that I had the privilege of attending – that day, he was simply unplayable; of the idolation from the Gradinata Sud; of him settling down in Genova; of his endless declarations of love for the team even after being forced out in the most undignified manner possible.

The details of Cassano’s transfer to Milan will involve Samp, Cassano and Milan all paying one third of the €5m owed to Real Madrid. Can you imagine how much money Samp would have earned had Garrone had taken a leaf from the Ferguson book and had the presence of mind to keep his fit of hubris under wraps until the next transfer window? €10-15 million would be in the Samp coffers, to invest in a couple of defenders and a new attacker. Instead, we take a monetary loss, and a loss on the pitch calculable with a quick look at recent results – two wins since October (they came against Serie A’s bottom two teams), and failure to score in six of the last ten games.

The future is bleak. We’ve handed over our European place with barely a whimper yet again, and when Pazzini doesn’t score, Samp doesn’t score. Is there any incentive for him to hang around any longer? To any world class player, Sampdoria is not a club with ambition and not a place for big, big players and their proportionate egos. And who could blame Pazzini if he wants to leave? He’s not like Cassano; he doesn’t need to be mollycoddled at a smaller team. His style of play could suit any European league, and he’s only twenty-six. The mid-table obscurity for which Samp are bound is no place for a player of his talents.

Well, that’s a discussion for a later date. Today, Antonio Cassano is going to sign for Milan, and it’s a sad, sad day for Sampdoria.

Here’s what we’re losing.