Nesta related stuff from the 23 Adventures of Azzurri (2)

Again, this is from translations of the 23 Adventures of Azzurri, from World Soccer Magazine. Many thanks go to hal for translating the series (from Japanese) and allowing us to repost here.

Daniele De Rossi’s Azzurri Adventure

(after the game,) i immediately went to see brian mcbride to apologize. there, i looked straight into his eyes and told him how i had completely lost myself at that moment. ‘i had no intention to hurt him’, i said. he graciously accepted my words when i told him that that was the truth. to this today, i truly feel grateful to him. i can clearly remember how it felt when we shook hands.

although my handshake with mcbride relieved me, i, quite expectedly, couldn’t sleep at all that night. i received tons of messages on my mobile sent from my teammates at roma and my friends, but i couldn’t work up the courage to reply. the only one i spoke to was my wife tamara, who was trying to act cheerfully for me.

my team-mates in the azzurri were also concerned for me too.

there was one team-mate who treated me with great kindness. it was nesta. in his case, he was out of the tournament due to an injury, but we were in the same position of not being able to play. (like me,) he was also struggling in a situation where he couldn’t help the team. that was why we were able to relate to each other.

it was him who approached me one day. ‘how are you doing?’, he asked me. then he put an arm around my shoulders and said, ‘let’s overcome this difficult situation together.’ it was so unexpected. there are a couple of reasons (for that). firstly, because of the difference in our ‘status’. he was already a fuoriclasse defender, whereas i’m merely a young midfielder. there’s a difference in our ages too. and this may sound strange, but we’re simply not of the same breed. he was once the captain of lazio. (whereas) me, i’m a born romanista. we’re like water and oil, you see? when it came to incompatibility, we were perhaps even worse off than that. of course, as a member of the national team, we shared the same will to fight for italy. and i was obviously aware of the fact that it had been a few years since he left lazio for milan. but in reality, we had no reason to close that distance between us. we hadn’t even considered each other as someone to be interested in.

but i was able to nurture a friendship with nesta. on the eve of the final, he even promised me that he’d cheer (for me) with more heart than anyone else.

(when we won,) i couldn’t stop the tremor that shook my body. as i thanked riva and lippi, i tightened my fist remembering how my handshake with mcbride felt and swore in that circle of jubilance that i would never ever lose myself like that again. then i thought of my family. i saw my daughter gaia smiling in my mind as i wordlessly said,‘it’s done’ to tamara, . that’s when del piero came running to me. he hugged me so tightly it almost hurt.

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