“I was said to be one of the most obvious talents in 90s football. I was famous for my overhead kick, a crazy technical move, the metaphor of my life. Indeed, in 2007, a ban for cocaine turned everything upside down…”, with these words Francesco Flachi presents Life turned upside down – Rise and fall of a popular footballer, a podcast, written with Matteo Politanò, which traces the lights and shadows of one of the funniest number 10s of the golden age of Italian football, between the 90s and the new millennium. Francesco Flachi, known as Ciccio, played his last match in 2007 with Sampdoria, the team that dedicated his career, of which he was captain and with which he played 241 matches, scoring 110 goals, the third scorer in the history after Vialli and Mancini. The ones that everyone remembers are his aerial kicks, traceable and very clicked on YouTube today, but Flachi, a true Florentine born in 1975, who grew up with the dream of imitating the exploits of champions linked to his city like Giancarlo Antognoni and Roberto Baggio, is a quality, complete, powerful second striker: an icon not only for the Genoese club but for all provincial football, at the time a high-class gold mine in a Serie A which we remember with nostalgia as the richest championship in the world, in economic terms but above all in terms of talent.
Troubles: gambling and drugs
Genius and carefreeness, on the field but also off it. In 2006, when he was experiencing the highest moment of his career, he was disqualified for the first time for a football bet. He maintained his innocence but was forced to stay away from the field for two months. Then in 2007, the final fall, the one that he defines himself, with a football metaphor particularly relevant in this podcast, as “The reversal”: he tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine, benzoylecgonine, during of the anti-doping control carried out. after the Sampdoria-Inter match. Judgment of 16 months which the Disciplinary Commission will extend to 24 after the CONI appeal. In 2008 he returned to the field in the small towns of Empoli and Brescia, but the downward trend continued. And it was precisely in this last team that Flachi hit rock bottom in August 2009, because he again tested positive for cocaine and, as a repeat offender, he was sentenced to twelve years not only of playing football but also of any stadium. also unable to go to his son's matches. “I fled like a thief – he admitted years later to DAZN which had already dedicated a documentary to his story -. I packed everything I could into the car, picked up my daughter from daycare, unplugged the phone and off we went. These were very hard times, and it was my fault alone. I locked myself in the beach house, I didn't want to see anyone, I didn't even watch the games anymore.”
But the podcast, produced by OnePodcast, available today on all major audio streaming platforms, also tells the story of the rise, at least personal, of Ciccio Flachi: his relationship with Doriani's fans, who never heard of him. abandoned (“I will thank them all my life, I understood what it means to be a real idol”), the sandwich shop opened its doors in Florence, a project abandoned because “I stayed up late at night and it was definitely not good for my private life” (source again DAZN), until the resounding return to the field in 2022 at the age of 46, perhaps wanting to complete the loop on this green lawn. The story is enriched by the contributions of great players , friends and historical companions: from the world champion and his childhood idol Giancarlo Antognoni to Attilio Lombardo, from Fabio Quagliarella to Ciccio Baiano, and even Angelo Palombo, Emanuele Pesaresi, Fabio Bazzani, Sergio Volpi. and Gianluca Berti, who accompany Flachi to tell the incredible story of a champion who first saw all his dreams come true, then all his nightmares.
Read also:
