Looking different: the story of Gianluigi Lentini

In the 90s it was not so common to comment on every look a football player worn. The attention to that aspect of the game came later, with the Beckham-era. Obviously, there were some exceptions, like the ones of George Best or Johan Cruyff, relegated to great champions who were able to influence the people tastes.

It was then stranges the newspaper chronicles of that time, when describing Gianluigi Lentini, who was ready to become the most paid player in the world. There was an incredible focus on his look, his jewelry, his fast cars and a behavior that could look naïf, but was only the symbol of a fragile guy, come from the country and became great and overpaid. The attention around Lentini, made him the first modern player in Serie A.

He was an ancient Balotelli, told in a totally 90s way, and then without the social media and relying only on the paper. In that way it was more difficult to defend yourself from accusations and speculations of the media, that always looked at Lentini with suspicious. The situation went eventually bad with the news of the “black payment” of Berlusconi, that bought him from Torino.

From the car crash with his yellow Porsche, Lentini was never the same anymore, he seemed to have accomplished in become what media wanted him to become. 

He was in some way different: he loved fashion, he wanted to write a book about it, and he loved to wear different. He was a real talent, with a magical left foot and a good athletic power. But he was also the first victim of a system that was not able to accept the difference. A system that was shocked by the Beckham era, that made it clear that the footballer could also be show-biz player.

Perhaps Lentini was not ready, or perhaps we were not, to become the first media player in the history of Serie A. He crashed into that yellow Porsche, against the coma, against a physicist who no longer reacted properly. And that gave us only a nostalgic memory of a sample that could have been and was not.