Priest on Sunday morning, footballer in the afternoon for the city team. It was the “scoring priest” Don Francesco Ametta, 29, assistant parish priest of San Martino in Rio, in the Reggio Emilia region, who played and scored in the Coppa Italia Promozione match between Sammartinese and Bagnolese last Wednesday. “Unfortunately it didn't help, we lost 3-2, but it was a great feeling,” said the young prelate and striker. “I always played at a good level as a child in Reggio Emilia – explains Don Francesco – But at 19, the most important call from the Lord arrived. And I decided to enter the seminary for seven years and leave competitive football. However, I was a seminarian and I did some tournaments.”
Then, in 2022, he was ordained a priest and sent to San Martino de Rio as parish vicar. “In November last year, I asked if I could train with Sammartinese, but just to stay in shape. This year, I started right away and they signed me up. On Wednesday, I didn't even think about playing and I played 90 minutes. and I even scored a goal, the first since I became a priest.”
Apparently a record for official FIGC matches. You have to go back to the 1960s and go abroad to find José Manuel Basurco, a Spanish priest sent to South America where he scored a goal in the Copa Libertadores for Barcelona de Guayaquil against Estudiantes.
Don Ametta however specifies: “The mass is for me the heart of Sunday, but if I have time, I will also go to play”. Finally he tells how he was welcomed in a world, that of football, where profanity and blasphemy often fly. “When I hear someone swear, I take it back. But I must thank the boys because they are all very respectful. Football is a meeting place and I also consider it a pastoral mission. It is a great metaphor for life, difficulties are faced in a group as a community. How do the opponents behave on the field? Who knows that I am a priest often, perhaps to complain about a fault, he tells me: you can't lie…”. Closing the call to a famous native of San Martino, the former footballer of Inter, Fiorentina and the national team, Lele Adani: “I don't know him, but I would like him to come and meet his young fellow citizens of our parish”.
