And he really got us good, at the first ring of the telephone, us who wanted to get out of his wheel on the right to beat him in the sprint and reminisce about the sweet epic of his and the radiant 80 years to be completed on June 17th, Eddy Merckx. "Congratulations to you, look, the De Bruyne that Napoli has taken is a great one, write it loud". Ohibò, and the incipit that annihilated us, us who wanted to talk to him instead about his eternal feats and the day before yesterday, barely conjugated by us like lost love in the present, became a delightful irony, in a blend that only lacked the gin tonic on the rocks between football and Flemish cycling.

"De Bruyne, I said, and not Mertens, who was surely Dries a good finisher on the wing, but he reminds me too much of that Freddy Maertens cyclist who in Barcelona made me lose the World Championship in '73, okay that Felice Gimondi won, at least a gentleman, and not a cynic like Freddy was...".

And if we want to close it here, this unexpected apotheosis of Belgian football found in Naples 2025, "but what can you tell me, Eddy, about Romelu Lukaku, also a Belgian footballer?". "Bah" - and we intuit the shoulder shrug of someone who knew Roger De Vlaeminck as well as Marcel Van der Slagmolen - he's a necessary and sometimes insufficient finalizer, like Guido Reybrouck was for me, when I had to give him the lead-out. And so, since I wasn't sure, I continued to do the lead-out myself...".

Eddy Merckx, the greatest cycling champion of all time - "but leave it, there was Coppi before me, now there's Pogacar, leave it, time is not yesterday, as you writers want, bienvenu the memory to those who have raced for tomorrow" - is however strong with an unparalleled heritage. Ask me who Merckx was, ask me who the Beatles were, and so be it, and it's not a bad book, but in Naples Eddy Merckx was - and reminds you today - infinitely happy, Eddy Merckx, June 12, 1968, he won in Naples, here where you reign and read, and have learned to read, Arenaccia velodrome, Riccardo Cassero was writing his first Giro d'Italia. First of 5 Giros.

We won't stay here, look for them, to find the Great Giros, the Classics, the World Championships, incredible Heerlen '67, the hour record, the melancholy, the masterpiece of the '69 Tour, if you want the details and the diary, just ask for them. But we are where he, record holder of victories overall, chose to be that day - Wednesday, June 12, 1968 -, "you know it was the Giro of the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, how strong I was and what emotion, Faema, Adorni, Vandenbossche, write it all together it comes out better than nostalgia, and Victor Van Schil, what a page you gave..., a Giro not yet 23 years old, the first won on a Wednesday".

Yes, on a working day for workers and cyclists and under the rain, that afternoon. "I had number '21' and frankly so cold, so much joy on that podium". Eddy Merckx, the first of Belgians and foreigners who truly won in Naples, we were living the youth and maturity not only of sport, 1968, he hasn't come back from here since then.

Of course in Benevento, Giro 1976 a whiskey after the arrival at the hotel with Gimondi, but don't tell Driessens and Pezzi, but who would listen to us from up there? And dismounted from the saddle, for his bikes, by Cristian Auriemma, in Pietravairano, in a Giro that stopped in Caserta.

Naples sublime with lights he saw again in postcard and video, how time passes. "You know, I saw that Kevin De Bruyne arrived with you in the sun, I would like to meet him on the seafront, what a lead-out". We await Het Laatste Nieuws. Without Mertens/Maertens? Come on, let's bring them too, two more covers, but you bring the pink jerseys to Marechiaro, they're not facsimiles.

"I have an adjective for my victory in Naples back then, you know, I never told you. Don't you know French?, it's inoubliable". Happy birthday, my dear and infinite friend, thanks from a lifetime ago for such unforgettable company.

from Il Mattino