The former goalkeeper: “Not going to Euro 2012 was a stab in the back. My biggest regret? Leaving Inter in Julio Cesar’s last year.”

WhatsApp status as a state of mind. Emiliano Viviano once wrote “inflamed putrid ugly bitch” in the green app, today he puts the infinity symbol and a puffer fish: “Swollen as I am, with love for my partner.”

What evolution is this?

“As a footballer, to keep the flame alive, I always had that kind of anger inside me. Today I am more serene, I have learned to be so even thinking about that side of my character, zero diplomacy, which even if I was right led me to be wrong. And it affected my career.“

It’s not just that.

”I’ve done a lot of stupid things and then I tell them about it, but I’ve never considered saying what I think to be a mistake. There are those who have been left out of the squad in six different teams and found another one every year, but Viviano was always the one who argued and talked too much, not the one who would have given an arm and a leg for a teammate. Italian soccer is like a big apartment building, rumors multiply and destroy you: look at De Zerbi.”

What does De Zerbi have to do with it?

“He hasn’t coached at a high level in Italy yet because people are influenced by the image Roberto projects of himself. They praise fakes or cowards, but he always tells you the truth and is always respectful, yet they call him presumptuous. Or they don’t want him because they’re afraid they won’t know how to manage him. But does the human factor, who he really is, count for nothing? Does only how he manages external communication count?”

With the referees? I even used to talk gibberish to some of them, like in ‘Amici miei’, because they didn’t understand anyway.

You didn’t manage it, it would seem.

“In fact, I had a wonderful relationship with coaches with whom, thanks to our rapport, I didn’t even need to say anything: Cosmi, Zenga, Mihajlovic. Sinisa and I had a few heated exchanges, but it lasted thirty seconds. I would have done anything for him. Let me tell you this: one morning, I had slept very little, I walked into his locker room, he was completely naked, and I said, ‘Coach, I was late: it’s better if you don’t train me today.’ And he said, in three words, ‘Go home.’ The next day he called me: ‘Do you know that if you had found an excuse yesterday, you wouldn’t have seen the field again until the end of the season?’”

And how did you get on with the referees?

“With the toughest ones, very well. In my last year in Serie B, I got a straight red card for saying ‘You suck,’ but with Pairetto, I went overboard and he pretended nothing had happened. With some of them, I even used the supercazzola from ‘Amici miei,’ because they didn’t understand anyway…”

Before becoming a goalkeeper, he was a striker.

“And at the same time, I was a cyclist until I was 12: I had a future, but it was too hard work. I’ve never been able to stand cardio: I’d rather do 1,500 dives and four hours in the gym than cardio. I always trained at 20 percent, maybe even less: I was so physically powerful that I could afford to, everything came easily to me, but then in the long run you pay the price.“

And how did you get on with Zeman?

”One day he looked at me strangely: ‘Why aren’t you running?’. ‘Coach, I became a goalkeeper so I wouldn’t have to run’. ‘Then don’t run’. Another story: one day he saw me smoking hidden behind the bus: ‘What are you doing, hiding?’. ‘No, coach, but it’s not good for people to see a soccer player smoking.’ ‘Look, only thieves hide.’“

In Brescia, you trained with Baggio.

”I’m from Florence, I was born in the mid-80s, for us he was like a religion.”

And what was it like for you to play for Fiorentina for only one season, a half-fulfilled dream?

“No, look: if you’re a die-hard fan of a team, if there’s unconditional love, there are no ifs or buts, time doesn’t matter. When Fiorentina came looking for me, Real Madrid and Manchester United could have called me at the same time and I would still have gone to Fiorentina. It was my lifelong dream, and for a dream there is no such thing as too little or too much. There is the dream, and that’s it.”

You mentioned Baggio…

“Imagine when, at my first training session with the Primavera team, I saw him come into our locker room to introduce himself. He sat down with us, asked us how we were doing, and when he heard my accent, he asked me, ‘Are you from Florence?’: his eyes lit up. Several people in my neighborhood would say to me, ‘If you see him, say hi to Baggio.’ I thought it was just a cliché, but in reality, they were all people Robi had gone hunting with.“

Inter is my only real regret. I never played because I did everything I could to leave, against the club’s wishes.”

Guardiola was there too.

“I was 17, and at the end of training, he asked me, ‘Would you like me to shoot some goals at you?’ He was a man of infinite intelligence and sensitivity. If you told him today that your daughter had broken her ankle, in two years’ time, when he saw you, he would ask you how your daughter was doing.”

You had the Arsenal, Sporting, and Inter jerseys without playing a single minute: did fate steal something from you?

“At Arsenal, there was Wenger: I expected a revolutionary, but he was a normal coach. I didn’t play because Szczesny had an amazing season, and there was also Fabianski. At Sporting, it was a political issue: President Bruno de Carvalho wanted me, but those who replaced him made life difficult for me. Three million for a transfer and not even a friendly match, just the bench. Mihajlovic didn’t even start, the other coaches would come and ask me, ‘Why aren’t you playing?’. ‘How should I know?’. The fourth coach, Marcel Keizer, explained it to me: ‘There’s an order not to call you up.’”

And Inter?

“In my career, I’ve made several gut decisions, and that’s the only real regret I have. I never played because I did everything I could to leave, against the club’s wishes: Julio Cesar was in his last year, they were looking for something new and they told me so, but I didn’t believe them. One of the mistakes I mentioned earlier.“

Before, when he was co-owned by Bologna, Mourinho kept an eye on him.

”He definitely did that when Bologna played Inter in a fairly delicate match, and he did it in his own way: he stood behind my goal for the entire warm-up. It was his way of saying ‘I’m watching you’, to see how I reacted under pressure. But it was also a clever way to put pressure on me in that game.”

Inter reappeared in his life seven years after that separation, after his experience at Sporting.

“Handanovic was injured, I had done the medical tests and even a training session, then I was locked in a hotel waiting in vain. They never explained to me what really happened: some said it was Handanovic’s decision, others said it was Conte’s, but the fact is that Piero Ausilio called me and said: ‘Vivio, it’s not happening’. And that was that.”

Amen also for having played only six games for the national team?

There was Buffon, a guy who, by the way, should have been applauded in every Italian stadium, but instead he didn’t get the respect he deserved everywhere. As his second choice, it was impossible to play more, but after those two years I should have been more present: it didn’t happen through any fault of my own.”

Speaking of faults, someone who played for the national team with you could say the same thing…

“Look, Mario Balotelli is a guy with great values, who never caused any problems in the locker rooms he frequented, except to himself. We’re friends because he trusts me. If I tell him something, 99 times out of 100 he listens to me. Like that time when he had to go to a press conference for the national team and there was no way to convince him. Gigi Riva, Mauro Vladovich, Buffon, Cassano, Prandelli tried… Nothing. I said to him, ‘Mario, let’s go and smoke a cigarette, come on. Look, you have to talk.’ ‘No, Vivio: they’ll drag my private life into it.‘ ‘And you know how to respond.’ Mario has always seen me as crazy, but in a good way. And he said to himself, ‘If he, who is crazy, tells me to do it, maybe I really should do it.’ And he went and spoke.“

Not going to Euro 2012 was a big blow for you, wasn’t it?

”A stab in the back from Prandelli: those six games were all from the previous two years, so Buffon played some of them, I played some, and the others who went to the Euros played none. I played for Palermo, Sirigu for PSG, De Sanctis for Napoli: it was easier to leave me at home. It was a political decision, and of course I told Prandelli that.“

You were in goal on the night of Italy-Serbia in Genoa, the madness of Ivan the Terrible.

”A smoke bomb hit me on the calf, but I hardly noticed it. I went to the referee not because I was afraid—I grew up in the stands—but because I was afraid of being distracted by something happening outside. I told him, ‘Send them to this side.’”

Pirlo was also on the field that day, who later became his coach in Turkey, at Fatih Karagümrük.

“He’s a coach with incredible ideas, perhaps too many for the situations he found himself in after Juventus: he demands a lot from players, who need to be of a certain quality. I still believe he can have a great career on the bench, but it also depends on his hunger: at the moment, he’s gone from making very uncomfortable choices—Turkey, in fact—to others that are a little more comfortable.”

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done as a player?

“Me, Di Vaio, and Portanova on the eighth floor of the Unipol headquarters, trying to figure out how to balance the books and save Bologna. Then we had to go to Parma—we left the same day because there was no money for the trip—and before the game, Malesani said to us, ‘Guys, let’s play this game and then say goodbye: we’re bankrupt.’ Instead, I went out for the warm-up and saw our fans cheering, ‘We’re safe, we’re safe.’ The money had been found. By the way, soccer owes Malesani something. In this environment, if you don’t compromise, you can have problems, and he’s like me in that respect: there are no shortcuts, no compromises.“

We meant a different kind of madness…

”Okay. I’m not called up for Everton-Arsenal, so I’m going out for the evening. Around two o’clock, I go out for a cigarette and read a text message: ‘Fabianski is ill: a car will pick you up at half past six’. I had drunk half a bottle of vodka, so I go to my friend who owns the nightclub and show him the message. He looks at me: ‘Now what?’. ‘Now get me some more vodka.’ I got home at dawn, took a shower, and when I arrived in Liverpool, the great Santi Cazorla said to me in the locker room: ‘You stink of alcohol, you’re disgusting.’ It was the only time in my life that I almost had a panic attack. I couldn’t see straight and kept repeating to myself: ‘If I have to go on, my career is over.’”

Any regrets?

“The sending off in Beijing, 2008 Olympics, Italy-Belgium in the quarter-finals. Mirallas accidentally kicked the ball at me, but it hit me in the eye and I lost it, also because some of his teammates had insulted us. So much for the Olympic spirit, I didn’t make a good impression.“

Have you ever thought about becoming a coach?

”Yes: I’m passionate about the idea, I’m fascinated by how coaches communicate, and having played in four different countries gives you enormous open-mindedness. But then I see Chivu, who has aged 20 years in six months, and my brother De Zerbi, who spends 15 hours a day, maybe even more, with his head in the game: you can’t do that job half-heartedly, and I think back to the fact that at the end of my career, I couldn’t stand certain things anymore. But I also think that I’m 40 years old, so who knows: anything is possible in the future…”