I could be artificially clever here and talk business about team building, the need for different people and different skills, the importance of the artisan over the artist.
I could throw in some pertinent impressive quotes from some famous person. Without much effort I could make this the heart of an American self-help book about dreams and goals.
Never give up.
But you know what? I just love this track and I wanted to articulate why I think, yes, this song of sport actually does all the above, but its beauty lies in it identifying for so many average players their authentic relationship with their sport. We have all played this role.
The football mediano is a precisely defined tactical midfield position in a football team, prevalent especially in the years of a more man-to-man style,adopted in Italy.
A time when, if someone asked you where you played, and you replied “midfield”, they needed more info: “4, 8 or 10?”
Mediano is 4. The humble yet essential role.
What today could be called the holding midfield player. Younger readers may relate to a De Rossi, or Gattuso, or a Kante, but Ligabue is a middle-aged Inter Milan fan, and here personifies the “mediano” in his hero: Gabriele Oriali.
So this is my translation of the song and its context.
Luciano Ligabue, the 80s artist, could be considered a Springsteen-esque working class narrator of the very simple (and yet beautiful) life in any one of Italy’s towns in Emilia. Simple pleasures, enjoyed by people knowing that the GrandTour was not their life destiny. (En passant, his early career was groomed by one of the the Albachiara family, Sàndor von Mallasz, when at Warner Music. :)
Clearly, in English, below, the rhyme is lost in translation but the sentiment is clear:
Una vita da mediano
A recuperar palloni
Nato senza i piedi buoni
Lavorare sui polmoni
A life as mediano,
tasked to win back the ball,
with uneducated feet,
needing to work instead with your lungs.
Una vita da mediano
Con dei compiti precisi
A coprire certe zone
A giocare generosi
A life as mediano,
given precise duties,
to patrol certain areas of the pitch,
and bust a gut for others.
Lì
Sempre lì
Lì nel mezzo
Finchè ce n’hai stai lì
There,
always there,
there in the middle,
until you drop, stay right there.
Una vita da mediano
Da chi segna sempre poco
Che il pallone devi darlo
A chi finalizza il gioco
A life as mediano,
who won’t score many goals,
and told to give the ball
to those who can actually “play”.
Una vita da mediano
Che natura non ti ha dato
Nè lo spunto della punta
Nè del 10 che peccato
A life as mediano,
where life didn’t give you the gifts,
neither of the striker,
nor of the 10. What a shame.
Lì
Sempre lì
Lì nel mezzo
Finchè ce n’hai stai lì
There,
always there,
there in the middle,
until you drop stay right there.
Stai lì
Sempre lì
Lì nel mezzo
Finchè ce n’hai
Finche ce n’hai
Stai lì
There,
always there,
there in the middle,
until you drop, until you drop,
stay right there.
Una vita da mediano
Da uno che si brucia presto
Perché quando hai dato troppo
Devi andare e fare posto
A life as mediano,
destined to burn out early,
and make way, when you’re done,
for fresh legs.
Una vita da mediano
Lavorando come Oriali
Anni di fatica e botte e
Vinci casomai i mondiali
A life as mediano,
grinding hard like Oriali,
years of sweat, and kicks, and yet, who knows,
your destiny is to win a World Cup.
Qui
Sempre qui
Qui nel mezzo
Finchè ce n’ho sto qui
Here,
always here,
here in the middle,
until I drop, I’m staying right here.
Sto qui
Sempre qui
Qui nel mezzo
Finchè ce n’ho
Finchè ce n’ho
Sto qui
Here,
always here,
here in the middle,
until I drop,
until I drop,
I’m staying right here.
Accept the hand you have been dealt, head down, don’t complain,and what is for you won’t go past you. You may ultimately win the big prize after all. |
This is one of these metaphors that sports does so well.
The cited Oriali indeed had a hugely successful career, albeit never a golden boy. But on the 11th July 1982, he was asked to step up. He’d already had a magnificent World Cup, man-marking wonderful players from the Brazil and Argentina teams eliminated along the way by the Italians, against all odds. But for the final, the talent in the Italian midfield (the 10 Antognoni) was injured. Gabriele Oriali was asked to do a bit more.
He played the game of a lifetime. Man of the match. The moral of the story.
Ligabue in the last chorus changes the sentiment to his own personal attitude.
Until I drop.
He has, despite not being particularly “bello” or charismatic, had one of the longest careers in Italian popular music.
And he still plays football in his old classic position. As a mediano.
