Thirty-six teams playing simultaneously, just like when TV didn’t impose its fragmented schedule. And immediately it’s “Sorry, Ciotti…”

Come on, let’s climb aboard this wild Wednesday, as if it were Doc Brown’s DeLorean, and treat ourselves to a blast of nostalgia. Let’s travel back in time to those distant Sunday afternoons when all the games started at the same time and TV didn’t yet have the power to impose the fragmented schedule that only made sense at the dinner table. In addition to Sunday, the day of Mass, soccer was only celebrated on Wednesdays, which was the tabernacle of what was most sacred: the European Cup. The sacredness came from the fact that each league had its own god, and only one. Today, a nation can have as many as five supposed deities. The Champions League is a pagan festival, a rave party. Only on Wednesdays and Sundays, because the week was a box of chocolates: on Sunday evenings, the TV series; on Mondays, the American blockbuster; on Thursdays, Mike’s quiz show; on Saturdays, the variety show.

Then the box was turned upside down, the chocolates were mixed up, and now, every day, we see everything: soccer, movies, quiz shows… But this Wednesday has something ancient about it, the vintage charm of contemporaneity: 36 teams playing at the same time, overlapping results, the changing rankings, the feeling of hearing Ameri’s voice in our ears (“Excuse me, Ciotti…’), Provenzali, Ferretti, Cucchi… No stew, just a unique Christmas dinner feast, everything and anything, only the eel is missing: Inter, Juve, Napoli, and Atalanta chasing the pass, Mou against Real, Tonali against Kvara, Osimhen against Haaland… In the end, back in the present, let’s hope we find all the Italian teams still in the running. Il Quartetto Cetra.