The former goalkeeper: “I’ve had 11 operations, the first for Baggio. Under the pouring rain in Perugia, I joked around and saved everything for Juve. My first coach was Buffon’s dad, I used to have lunch at his house.”

Andrea Mazzantini is a follower of Nietzsche. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” He learned this the hard way, with broken ribs and sternums, from Venice to Perugia. “For ten years, I dove to the left using both hands, never just one. No one ever asked why.”

“It was Baggio’s fault. Because of one of his feints, I tore my rotator cuff. It was October 27, 1993, Venice-Juve in the Italian Cup. It was the first of eleven operations. I played with a broken sternum, a shoulder that was only half functional, and without being able to breathe properly. It happened during a Fiorentina-Perugia match in Serie A.”

Did you think about quitting?

“Yes, also because in 1995, again in Serie B and against Avellino, I dislocated my collarbone. I told Zamparini that I would work in his warehouses, but he refused.”

What made you decide not to give up?

“Stubbornness. I started at Canaletto. The coach was Giancarlo Buffon, Gigi’s father, who was a striker and wasn’t very good. I used to have lunch at their house. I have fond memories of that, as well as working my way up through the First Division and Promotion.”

Why did it take you a while to emerge?

“I was a physically strong goalkeeper, but raw and small: I’m barely over 1.80 meters tall. I helped my parents in the family grocery store. Then Claudio Onofri had me try out for Pro Patria in C2, and that was my turning point. It was 1987. It was a formative and tragic year in which I witnessed death on the field. Andrea Ceccotti, my teammate, collapsed to the ground and died during a match against Treviso. I still think about it.“

In Venice, in Serie B, came his first big chance.

”I always played. Zamparini brought shamans to the training camp to ward off the evil eye. One day, some of my teammates and I went to the casino in secret. The president fined us a huge amount. Vieri was there too, a gruff but good guy with whom I once had a big argument, with lots of bad language. I’ve always been quick-tempered…”

The episode that best describes you?

“Perugia-Venezia, third-to-last day in Serie B, 1996. Allegri wrong-footed me on a penalty in the last minute, but at the end of the game, a thug approached Fogli, the captain, and punched him. I reacted by punching him back. He was the leader of the riot police, and I got a four-match ban.“

Then you went to Inter. How did that deal come about?

”Ferruccio Mazzola talked to Sandro about me. In those two and a half years, I trained as hard as I could, pushing Pagliuca. He always acknowledged that. I only played four games, including a derby, but I was lucky enough to see a UFO: Ronaldo.“

Tell us an anecdote.

”On the fifth double step, I was going to send him packing, but once I parried… backwards, with my head. ‘Ronni, go to hell,’ I said to him after yet another feint, and he laughed. So I threw myself at the ball with the back of my head and stopped it. When they practiced free kicks, it was quite a show. ‘If you miss, you have to strip naked.’ Once, the striptease began, and no one scored.”

Who pushed you to go to Perugia in ‘99?

“Bergomi and Pagliuca. ‘You’re not a second,’ they said. I chose 35, Mazzone was surprised. ‘Hey, you’re a goalkeeper. You have to play with number one…’”

The best moment in Umbria?

“The 2-1 win over Milan on December 23, 2000. Gaucci invited us to his house on New Year’s Eve, talked about a big bonus, and in the end, nothing, just fireworks…”

And the most tense?

“The eve of Perugia-Juve, May 2000. The year before, we had been the deciding factor in Milan’s Scudetto victory, and Gaucci didn’t want anyone to think anything was going on. That week, he controlled everything. There were spies, people in disguise. If we had lost, he would have sent us to a training camp in Asia, but I saved everything. Before returning in the pouring rain, I went to Collina with a hair dryer in my hand. ‘Shall we dry it like this?’ I said, laughing.“

A couple of flashes to describe Gaucci?

”To him, I was the union representative. He was a good man who knew how to be bad. He kicked Ahn out because he had scored against Italy, he demanded that Dellas get off the bus because he had made a deal with Roma. And the training camps were military-style, there was a lot of tension.”

But there were also some great players.

“I remember Nakata, a golden boy. Once, after an argument, he apologized by bringing me a box of gel. And then there was Rapaic, Grosso, Materazzi, but also Ma Mingyu, who was signed by mistake. He was terrible, he looked like a tourist, they called him ‘grandpa’. Finally, Mazzone, who wanted to take me to Brescia, but Gaucci said no, and Cosmi. We’re friends now, but we had so many arguments in the beginning.“

Were you ever close to a big club?

”Sensi proposed a swap with Antonioli to Gaucci. I was supposed to be the third goalkeeper at Euro 2000, but in the end, Zoff preferred Antonioli, who played for Roma.“

In 2004, the final blow. The car accident that ended his career.

”It was meant to be. I had just signed with Siena at the age of 33 and turned down Besiktas. I was driving towards the sea when a girl jumped a stop sign and hit me head-on. I lost feeling in some of my cervical vertebrae, C5 and C6. No one would clear me to play anymore; I had suffered too many injuries. Today, I coach at Roberto Mancini’s soccer school in Jesi, and I’m happy.”

Do you have any regrets?

“I never had the chance to be a starter for a big team. They said I was exhausted because I came out desperately. But I had to scare the attackers, otherwise what’s the point of playing in goal?”