He is curled up in a red fabric armchair inside A Cinemino of Bordeaux. The muscle tension is equal only to the one he has experienced in retreat with the Girondinsor with Brazil. On the other hand Marcio Santos He thinks he has never seen a more beautiful creature on a screen. The film is Basic Instinct And the scene is the one that sucks the breath to anyone: Sharon Stone overlooking and climbingresorting to the lethal weapon of seduction. When he leaves the room, Santos is dazed. How much would like to meet her also in real life. How much he would like to play his chances for dinner with the diva.
Impossible? Not so much. Especially if on the other side of the phone handset there is a film producer. “How do you say? Do you like stone? Well, sand sign for Fiorentina and do at least seven goals I let you go to dinner“. The voice is that of Vittorio Cecchi Gori. The year, 1995. The real film begins here.
In that horizon suspended between tragedy and farce, among the voices of the radiomercati and the feverish expectations of the fans pressed under the gates of the retreats, one of the most irresistibly absurd stories of modern football was born. There femme fatale More iconic than the 90s, a symbol of a media desire that raised reason, certainly does not think he could become a clause in a contract. Moreover, his name, next to that of a rough Brazilian defender, seems the result of a summer blunder. Yet the note really exists.
Italian football is at the height of its shiny parable. Serie A dominates Europe, the best world champions land on our soil as pagan deities. And Fiorentina, just returning to A under Ranieri’s guidance, is looking for a weight plant. The profile seems to be the right one: Marcio Santos, World champion with Brazil in ’94arrign marker with a compact physicist, strong in the aerial game and fearsome in duels.
So theStone operation. Eight days just after the final of the American World Cup, while Brazil celebrates its fourth title and Roberto Baggio contemplates the weight of the penalty sketched over the crossbar, A flight starts at dawn from Peretoladirected to Paris. On board, the Viola Triad: the CEO Luciano Luna, the sports director Cinquini, and the general manager Giancarlo Antognoni. Three men on a mission. Objective: to fill the six hundred million that still separate Fiorentina’s offer from the request of Bordeaux for Marcio Santos, fresh from evaluation with six billion, by grace received from the World Cup.
The margin of error, this time, is zero. Forbidden to return empty -handed. Not after the shipwreck of the Thuram operationthe first goal of the lily management. Also in that case, the delegation had moved in order, destination Principality of Monaco, where a handshake with the president Campora seemed to have closed everything. But then Arsène Wenger, a philosopher technician, was placed to overturn the script: “Thuram is too important for my patterns”. So, go ahead on plan B.
The mother scene is consumed in the villa at the gates of Paris of the president of Bordeaux, The optical-miliary Alain Afflelou. Five and a half hours of negotiation, between bubbles and faxes, seem to bring the parts closer. Until, as often happens in the August markets (and of the illusions), the theater coup arrives: from London the news that Tottenham has slipped into the negotiation. He offered more. Much more. And directly to the player, on vacation at the parents’ house, near Porto Alegre.
The engagement proposed by the Spurs is sensitive. Just enough to make even a fresh world champion falter. But Fiorentina does not give up. Two days later, the sports director Cinquini flies to Rio de Janeiro. He meets Marcio Santos, illustrates the technical project to him, pampers him with words and visions. In the evening, he calls Luna, who awaits Rome, and can finally pronounce the magic formula: “It is done”.
What Marcio Santos really convinced, is not known. But perhaps, in the Carioca conversation, a suggestion emerged. “The president of Fiorentina? It’s Vittorio Cecchi Gori”. The defender raises an eyebrow. “Did he say film producer?” Rhetorical question. The idea takes shape: and if there was really a way to get to know Sharon Stone.
Shortly thereafter, the most absurdly unlikely epilogue of Italian football materializes. The bet is born. “If this year I signs seven goals, I organize a dinner with Sharon Stone”. Cecchi Gori’s proposal is real, the bonus will never end in white but will hover through the whole agreement as a moral clause, halfway between Hollywood and the San Lorenzo market. A detail that transforms a legend negotiation.
Marcio Santos accepts. Signature. And he swears battle. It will spend a good part of the season plus in the opposing area than in its own. He will score two goals, true. And it will make a couple of it in the wrong door.
Even counting the own goal, we are still stopped at four. Too few even for an aperitif with Sharon. The dream remains such. The appointment with the diva postponed to a date to be destined. On the big screen, and nothing more.