He was clear-eyed and rested, primarily because the team had decided to skip the Friday ritual of pizza and buckets of beer at Polipo’s. They had hustled through a quick workout in shorts, listened to more game planning from Sam, listened to yet another emotional speech, this one from Pietro, and finally quit at ten Friday night. They had practiced enough.
Saturday night they gathered at Café Montana for the pregame meal, a three-hour gastronomic fiesta with Nino on center stage and Carlo roaring in the kitchen. Signor Bruncardo was present and addressed his team. He thanked them for a thrilling season, one that would not, however, be complete unless they thrashed Bergamo tomorrow.
There were no women present — the little restaurant was packed with just the players — and this fact led to two raunchy poems and a final farewell, a profanity-laced ode composed by the lyrical Franco and delivered in a hysterical style.
Sam sent them home before eleven.
Chapter 25
Bergamo traveled well. They brought an impressive number of fans who arrived early and loud, unfurled banners, practiced horn blowing and chants, and in general made themselves quite at home at Stadio Lanfranchi. Eight straight Super Bowls bestowed upon them the right to go anywhere in NFL Italy and take over the stadium. Their cheerleaders were dressed appropriately in skimpy gold skirts and knee-high black boots, and this proved to be a distraction for the Panthers during the lengthy pregame warm-up. Focus was lost, or at least temporarily detoured, as the girls stretched and jiggled and limbered up for the big game.
“Why can’t we have cheerleaders?” Rick asked Sam when he walked by.
“Shut up.”
Sam stalked around the field, growling at his players, as nervous as any NFL coach before a big game. He chatted briefly with a reporter from the Gazzetta di Parma. A television crew shot some footage, as much of the cheerleaders as of the players.
The Panthers’ fans were not to be outdone. Alex Olivetto had spent the week rounding up the younger players from the flag football leagues, and they packed together at one end of the home stands and were soon yelling at the Bergamo supporters. Many ex-Panthers were there, along with families and friends. Anyone with a passing interest in football americano had a seat long before kickoff.
The locker room was intense, and Sam made no effort to calm his players. Football is a game of emotion, most of it grounded on fear, and every coach wants his team clamoring for violence. He issued the standard warnings against penalties and turnovers and stupid mistakes, then turned them loose.
When the teams lined up for the opening kickoff, the stadium was full and noisy. Parma received, and Giancarlo zipped along the far sideline with the return until he was pushed into the Bergamo bench at the 31. Rick trotted out with his offense, outwardly cool but with a hard knot deep in his stomach.
The first three plays were scripted, and none was designed to score. Rick called a quarterback sneak, and no translation was needed. Nino was shaking with rage and nicotine deprivation. His glutes were in full arrest, but the snap was quick and he lunged like a rocket at Maschi, who fought him off and stopped the play after a one-yard gain.
“Nice run, Goat,” Maschi yelled in a thick accent. The nickname would be thrown at Rick many times in the first half.
The second play was another quarterback sneak. It went nowhere, which was the plan. Maschi blitzed hard on every third and long without exception, and some of his sacks were acts of brutality. His tendency, though, perhaps through lack of experience and perhaps because he loved to be seen, was to “blitz tall,” to come in high. In the huddle, Rick called their special play: “Kill Maschi.” The offense had been running the play for a week now. In the shotgun, with no tailback and three wideouts, Franco lined up close behind Karl the Dane at left tackle. He squatted low to hide himself. On the snap, the offensive line double-teamed the tackles, leaving a gaping hole for Signor “L.T.” Maschi to come crashing through, a straight shot at Rick. He took the bait, and his quickness almost killed him. Rick dropped deep to pass, hoping the play would work before the linebacker assaulted him. As Maschi exploded through the middle, tall and confident and thrilled for a chance at Rick so soon, Judge Franco suddenly shot up from nowhere and caused a mighty collision between two players who each weighed 220 pounds. Franco’s helmet landed perfectly, just under Maschi’s face mask, ripping off the chin strap and causing the gold Bergamo helmet to shoot high into the air. Maschi flipped, his feet soon chasing his helmet, and when he landed on his head, Sam thought they might have killed him. It was a classic beheading, a super highlight, the type of play that would be repeated a million times on the sports channels in the United States. Perfectly legal, perfectly brutal.
Rick missed it because he had the ball with his back to the play. He heard it, though, the crack and crunch of the extremely nasty hit, every bit as violent as something from the real NFL.
As the play developed, things became complicated, and when it was over, the referees needed five minutes to sort it all out. At least four flags were on the field, along with what appeared to be three dead bodies.
Maschi wasn’t moving, and not far away Franco wasn’t either. But there was no penalty on that part of the play. The first flag went down in the secondary. The safety was a little thug named McGregor, a Yank from Gettysburg College who fancied himself to be from the assassin school of roving safeties. In an attempt to establish turf, intimidate, bully, and simply start the game with the right tone, he delivered a vicious clothesline to Fabrizio as he ran benignly across the field, far away from the action. Fortunately, a referee saw it. Unfortunately, Nino did, too, and by the time Nino sprinted to McGregor and knocked him down, there were more flags. Coaches ran onto the field and barely prevented a brawl.
The final flags floated down in the area where Rick had been tackled, after a five-yard gain. The cornerback, nicknamed The Professor, had played sparingly at Wake Forest as a youth, and now, in his mid-thirties, he was pursuing yet another degree in Italian literature. When he wasn’t studying or teaching, he was playing and coaching for the Bergamo Lions. Far from a soft academic, The Professor went for the head and was fond of the cheap shot. If his hamstring was bothering him, it wasn’t apparent. After a hard hit on Rick, he yelled, like a crazy man, “Great run, Goat! Now throw me a pass!” Rick gave him a shove, The Professor shoved back, and there were flags.
While the officials huddled frantically and seemed completely clueless about what to do, the trainers tended to the wounded. Franco was the first up. He jogged to the sideline, where he was mobbed by his teammates. Kill Maschi had worked to perfection. On the ground, Maschi’s legs were moving, so there was some relief around the stadium. Then his knees bent, the trainers stood, and Maschi bounded to his feet. He walked to the sideline, found a seat on the bench, and began taking oxygen. He would be back, and soon, though his enthusiasm for the blitz would not return that day.
Sam was screaming at the referees to eject McGregor, and it was deserved. But they would have to eject Nino as well for throwing a punch. The compromise was a fifteen-yard penalty against the Lions — first down Panthers. When Fabrizio saw the penalty being marked off, he slowly got to his feet and went to the bench.
No permanent injuries. Everybody would be back. Both sidelines were furious, and all the coaches were yelling at the officials in a heated mixture of languages.