THE STORY OF AC MILAN EMBODIED IN HIS FACE

Even the air at San Siro stepped aside that afternoon. Franco Baresi was making his home debut in an AC Milan shirt from the first minute, cutting through everything: fans, stands, opponents. It was September 1978, AC Milan 1-0 Avellino, Buriani scoring ten minutes from the end and Piscinin running straight over to embrace him – matchday one of the campaign that would deliver the tenth Scudetto, the Star. He wore a different number, 6, but that day only the present mattered.

He would have another twenty years to turn everything about himself into History. That elegant stride, that way of carrying the ball forward, so soft, so commanding. He looked as though he had been playing for a lifetime; in reality, he was only just beginning. Franco Baresi never needed to “claim” AC Milan for himself. AC Milan was the Rossonero blanket of his life, the one he wrapped himself in and wrapped us in. Don’t be angry, Franco, but we would never have gone to Serie B without your long absence in those months between late 1981 and early 1982.

Maurizio Venturi had done all he could to replace him as well as possible, but Franco was Franco: he was only 21, and yet his AC Milan already could not do without him, ever. Franco Baresi, the man furthest and least likely to ever make excuses. Franco, we had won at Cesena that afternoon, and yet in Naples… “No, that’s not it, let’s not talk about it any more, it was our fault, we were the ones who shouldn’t have come into the final matchday in that league position”.

Years of hardship and strength of character. Years in which History – the true one, the lofty one, the glorious one, the only one possible for an athlete and a man of his kind – was preparing his reward. Silvio Berlusconi changed AC Milan, Italian football, European football and world football; he realigned the planets of the game and reversed the poles of history. With him, everything new, everything changed, everything different – except that captain’s armband and that head held high. Franco Baresi remained Franco Baresi, before the new era and inside an entirely new chapter.