Henry Kissinger also had a strong passion for football. In 1988 he showed up unexpectedly at the former Delle Alpi stadium in Turin to watch a Juventus-Napoli.
He was with his friend: the lawyer Gianni Agnelli. But for the two great Juventus fans, November 20, 1988 was a disastrous day because Napoli Maradona, who had won the championship the year before, scored 5 goals against Juve.
There remains a memorable pre-match interview by Giampiero Galeazzi to whom Kissinger said he loved soccer and hoped "it would become an American sport." But despite that resounding 5-3 victory, Napoli finished second behind record-breaking Inter.
As a child, before fleeing Germany, Kissinger had tried out for the youth team of the local team, Greuther Fürth, which he supported for the rest of his life, being informed of the team's results by the German embassy every Monday morning. In September 2012, after the historic first promotion to the Bundesliga, Kissinger kept his promise to go and see one of his team's matches live.
In 1978, after having been seen in the stands next to the dictator Jorge Videla in Rosario for the famous 'World Cup of Shame' match between Argentina and Peru, he was appointed president of the board of the NASL (North American Soccer League), the predecessor of the MLS, where Pelé, George Best and his beloved Franz Beckenbauer played.
“Heroes become myths when they enrich the lives of all of us, when they touch our hearts. Beckenbauer, the Kaiser, was one of these myths,” he confessed on the occasion of his 1989th birthday in a long interview on the website of Bayern Munich, a club of which he had been a member since XNUMX despite never having been a fan.
Interview in which he distilled some maxims about this sport, such as "football at its highest level is complexity masquerading as simplicity", "football is a beautiful game for the masses, who can totally identify with its passions, its sudden triumphs and its inevitable disappointments". Kissinger also tried to bring the 1986 World Cup to the United States, but Mexico won.
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Article published on November 30, 2023 - 22:09
