Here we are, with 'Unforgettable', Gianfranco's new book in our hands, and it is the grains of sand from Nico Fidenco that unfold serenely and more vividly—with every rustle of the page—the heartbeat.

Here we are, and also in the precious space dedicated to cycling that deserves it—we're talking about him, Gianfranco Coppola, popular radio and television journalist, deputy editor of RAI Campania and president of USSI—a devoted admirer of Fausto Coppi, even though he was born after Coppi's time... Here we are to savor 'Unforgettable', the text that Gianfranco Coppola has dedicated to Naples football club's 100 years, with the most original lens of observation through their friendly international matches.

In a brilliant paraphrase of football, today only tributary to Sky journalists' change of wardrobe and successes if not in full-page coverage, Coppola restores to us the subtle flavor—certainly not Gozzanian, but at least singer-songwriter-like—of those romantic encounters, where the result on the field is the last to perish. They parade without disturbance, save for the sparkle in the eyes, Ferencváros and Hask Zagreb, Rangers and Vasco da Gama, Flamengo which seemed like a mambo in 1981, Espérance Tunis, oh my, and Crystal Palace, in an anthology spanning from 1926 to recent years...

They parade, and here we all are, in the recovery of the journalistic signatures that educated us, or at least kept us company—from Carratelli to Acampora, from Troise to Cisternino, from Marolda to Iavarone, from Mollichelli to Giordano—a series of encounters supported by an exhaustive apparatus of information and curiosities, among goals and saves that are no longer used, but still shine brightly. There are Bugatti and Bandoni, Casari and Mosele, Carmignani and the serene Cuman with the first name Pacifico. There are Vinicio time and again Vinicio, Jeppson and Cané, Fraschini and Altomare, Rivellino and Bodi, Krieziu and Arce, but where were we left off?

Unforgettable friendlies, a dive without a net and with shin guards on, sometimes en souplesse, Gianfranco Coppola honors an almost secondary football, but who cares anymore about Maradona, as only someone who prefers cycling could do. On open stage, on the road, we still await them, thanks to the statistical effort in the book by Calvelli and D'Avanzo, among others, and with the editorial coordination of Marco LoBasso of 'LeVarie', we still await them for a line of smiles, the Unforgettables of 100 years of Naples football, differently understood. And as only the spirit of gentlemanly sport and the unrepeatable intuition of a journalist like Gianfranco Coppola could illuminate. As they say in the Tour, hors catégorie.