Nicolo Zaniolo’s red card in Roma-Genoa sparked considerable outrage on the part of Giallorossi fans all over the world, as well as fueled several comments on network television. Among them, Milena Bertolini – the manager of women’s Italian national team – said on Rai 2 following the match that “Zaniolo should be educated as he clearly struggles from an emotional point of view as of late.“
Today, La Gazzetta dello Sport provided a lengthy response from the 22-year-old’s agent, Claudio Vigorelli.
“Life, at times, is a concentrate of form and substance, of timing and opportunity. Nicolò Zaniolo is 22 years old, with all the strength and limits that this age is able to express. I’m not the only one who says he is Roma’s heritage – a club he considers him very close to – and of Italian football, in my capacity as agent, but the technical and political leaders of the national team says so too.”
“Having said this, it’s a shame how one of the most well-prepared coaches at an international level, Milena Bertolini, has not been able to smooth out her language and adapt to the role and the particular situation that the boy is experiencing.”
“Saying that Nicolò ‘must be educated’ should be then applied in the same measure toward all of his peers. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“One thing is certain: for those like me who are lucky enough to know them, I like to emphasize how Nicolò’s true fortune is not only that of possessing a unique talent for the game of football, but of having a wonderful family behind him who educate him and protect him in the best possible way.”
“Igor, Francesca and Benedetta represent the wealth that will pave the way for the dazzling career to which his technical-physical means are leading him. The rest are just clichés and bad interpretations. In short, the kind of thing that increasingly poisons today’s football with empty rhetoric.”
