Today’s edition of Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno reports on an initiative by the former Napoli goalkeeper’s wife Giuliani. In fact, a book has been written telling his story:
“In the world of football and beyond, Giuliano Giuliani inflicted a ruthless condemnation, that of remembrance. The veil of silence that has been draped over the Bolognese goalkeeper’s death has created an effect that is far from affectionate.
Everyone has chosen to forget him, despite over 200 Serie A games, winning two championships, one in Verona and the other in Naples. Despite a strong bond with Diego Maradona that started long before the teammate. It was Maradona himself who urged Ferlaino when Giuliani had spared him a fundamental goal in Verona in the year of the tricolor: let’s take that there. In 12 months (May 1989 and April 1990) Giuliani wins the first UEFA Cup in club history and celebrates the second Scudetto. Paolo Tomaselli, a Corriere della Sera journalist, is little more than a child when he writes a letter to the Hellas goalkeeper. Tomaselli plays football on Treviso pitches, stands between the posts and dreams. Imagine becoming like his idol. “When I grow up, I would be very happy to be as good as you,” concludes the small thought of nine lines written on a lined notebook.
It was 1986, Paolo, and football was also in his dream book. Today he is a very good sports reporter and when he finds in a drawer the letter that was never delivered to Giuliani, he relives the light of his memory, reliving the feeling of regret he felt at the news of his death. So he decides to write again. Write for him, not for him this time. «Giuliano Giuliani, more alone than a goalkeeper», published by 66THA2ND, in the «vita inattese» series is not a memoir. Tomaselli restores the memory that was denied to the goalkeeper with a series of anecdotes, even unpublished stories, about Giuliani. It tells of his life, illness, affections and oblivion in which a quiet and reserved boy with a beautiful but damn short career was trapped.
A man to whom the spot AIDS (that would be the cause of death, but is it really so?) denies everything. The passions (fashion and luxury cars), loves, his wife Raffaella Giuliani and the unpublished testimony of his daughter Gessica, from whom her father’s illness was kept secret for a long (too long?) time. Then a little girl who saw her father in the morning – he took her to school – and died in the afternoon. The story of Giulio Papa, the man Jessica has in her heart. “I still sleep to this day hugging a heart-shaped pillow like it’s his hand. He had beautiful hands, he pressed them tightly to mine».