FLAGS
Two things cannot be changed in life: who your mother is and where your sports loyalty lies. There is no question about your mother, for the rest there have been some exceptions, but it is a rare and negligible event.
Getting excited whilst following a competition, siding with one team or the other according to the colors worn is almost the norm. The sense of belonging is deep, it is linked to something atavistic that partly escapes us and is completely independent from the protagonists. It is enough for a player to change his shirt and he is thrown off the empyrean. There is no appeal, the sentence is firm, the crime is high treason, the penalty is applied with immediate effect.
Are some color pairs better than others? Maybe, but that's not enough. Is there a grain of truth in the superiority that we recognize in the banners that identify us? Unlikely. So why do we go wild without restraint behind certain colors?
The flag is a cultural issue. It was born in the military field to distinguish the position of one's troops from that of enemies during a battle. This is why it brings with it the idea of a group of people united by the same purpose, sometimes by the same fate. But if it originally indicated "simply" where the "goodies" and the "baddies" were located, over the centuries it has become the symbol of a relationship, of a profound belonging where our chance for happiness is in the hands of a stranger standing in front of the penalty spot in the interminable moment before the referee's whistle.
A banner that "flutters in the wind" is enough to put the history of the country, business, betrayal, pride, determination, "women, horsemen, arms, loves" back on track. This is why we admire those who “carry the flag high” and consider those who change it a traitor, so we always place that symbol at the highest point, and when not possible in the most visible.
A banner that “flutters in the wind” contains the culture of an entire country within
This is what is presented to Maria Dolens when an ambassador from a distant country arrives on the Colle di Miravalle and walks slowly towards the flagpole accompanied by the President of the Foundation, the local authorities, the municipal police in parade uniform and the whole city of Rovereto: the heart of a people, its expectations, its singularity and the aspiration to embrace other men who are unique and at the same time equal. This is why 99 banners wave every day in this place of Peace. It is not a parade or even a display of "internationality", it is the aspiration to represent the flag of the flags, to keep them all together, compact, almost merged into a global white that unites and contains them. Who knows if our hero thinks about all this before taking a penalty kick? And who knows if we may ever be proud of the colors we have in our hearts without hating those of the goalkeeper.
