Scheduled to screen on the day of the French Open Final, CinemaItaliaUK's presentation of Domenico Procacci's tennis documentary, Una Squadra, will get viewers in the mood for the grass court season. Moreover, along with the BBC's current Gods of Tennis series, it should keep nostalgics happy by harking back to the golden age when Italy's Davis Cup team reached four finals in five years between 1976-80.
There was much controversy in 1976, when Chile hosted the final of the Davis Cup. The Soviet Union had already refused to play a semi-final because President Salvador Allende had been murdered during the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power three years earlier. As Chile was considered a fascist country in Italy, there was pressure on the team to boycott the final after beating Australia.
However, Nicola Pietrangeli was determined to go and shame the regime with a defeat on their own doorstep. Team members Paolo Bertolucci, Adriano Panatta, ToninoZugarelli, and Corrado Barazzutti. But demonstrations were held against the trip, even though the squad pointed out that Italy maintained diplomatic relations with Chile and that Fiat continued to export cars. Playwright Dario Fo criticised them, while Domenico Modugno wrote a protest song. But the Andreotti government sanctioned the departure, as intelligence came from inside Chile that a humiliation could weaken Pinochet.
Pietrangeli would later reveal that there was something of a schism within the team, with Panatta and Pietrangeli on one side and Zugarelli and Barazzutti on the other. The first two were footloose and fancy free and thought nothing of Concorde jaunts to Rio just to get a tan. By contrast, the latter pair were family men, who preferred the quiet life. Consequently, the quartet barely spoke to each other in the locker room.
There was also a bit of needle between Zugarelli and Barazzutti, as the former was chosen to play in the European final at Wimbledon, as he was better on grass. He proved his worth by beating Roger Taylor and the Italians took a 2-0 lead into the doubles. However, Panatta had a dislike of David Lloyd and insisted on serving to his forehand in order `to teach him a lesson' and Bertolucci still despairs that they lost having had five match points.
Unconcerned, Panatta promised to defeat Taylor and duly did so, with Zugarelli beating John Lloyd to send Italy into the zonal semi-final against Australia.
Rather than cover this, however, Procacci leaps forward to the match against Spain in Barcelona in 1977. A hostile crowd had bayed at the Italians from the first service, but they had prevailed. When Zugarelli refused to play the dead rubber (claiming to have left his kit at the hotel), Panatta went through the motions in losing 6-1, 6-0. Tired of the incessant booing and having cushions thrown at him, he jumped into the crowd to remonstrate and wound up punching just about the only Italian supported in the bleachers. In a rare display of camaraderie, Zugarelli insulted the consul who came into the locker room to reprimand them and all now recall the episode with a shrug and a smile.
The next anecdote concerns Bertolucci sustaining a back injury playing football-tennis in the warm up before a match against Poland. Panatta is amused by the side effects that a painkilling injection had on his friend's genitals and by the fact that he chose to play doubles with Barazzutti, whom he actively disliked. However, he enjoyed his childish prank of hiding Zugarelli's socks and he recalls that they made an effective team in winning the match.
Finally, we head to Santiago for the 1976 final. We meet Chilean players Patricio Cornejo and Jaime Fillol Durán, while the Italians recall how hard the Pinochet authorities strove to showcase life under the regime. However, Panattaremembers thinking how sad and subdued everyone looked. He had arrived from an exhibition match in Las Vegas and was suffering from food poisoning. However, sports manager Mario Belardinelli (himself once a notable player) read him the riot act and Panatta passed himself fit.
The tennis arena was next door to the National Stadium, which had been used to detain and execute dissidents in 1973. FIFA had sent inspectors to verify that the venue was suitable for a World Cup qualifier. But they had been kept away from the prisoners and the match against the USSR was given the go ahead. When the Kremlin refused to send a team, Chile took to the pitch to score a ceremonial goal and claim their place in West Germany in 1974.
Two years later, Italy arrived to end a 76-year wait for the Davis Cup. Preparations went well and Captain Pietrangeliwas happy with the opening draw of Barazzutti against Fillol, as this gave them the chance to take a decisive lead in the tie, as Panatta was firm favourite to beat Cornejo. However, Belardinelli couldn't believe that Pietrangeli was so relaxed and launched such a tirade at supper the night before the first match that he had to be hospitalised.
Ultimately, Barazzutti prevailed. But he was so stricken by nerves that he was two sets down before he recovered his composure. With Panatta winning easily, attention turned to the doubles. Bertolucci was taken aback when Panattasuggested the wore red shirts for the occasion to rub Pinochet's nose in the clay. But Pietrangeli, Zugarelli, and Barazzutti claim not to have known about a conscious plan and insist the choice was coincidental.
As the TV coverage was in monochrome, nobody outside the arena was any the wiser and no one knew that Bertolucci asked if they could play the final set in blue. Having lost three match points, Panatta served for victory and the film ends with shots of the players showing the famous silver salad bowl to the thinning crowd.
Making canny use of archive footage, photos, and newspaper cuttings and offering a hugely entertaining insight into the dynamics of an iconic Italian quintet, this is also a thoughtful treatise on the ongoing debate about the relationship between politics and sport. Even though the mission to bloody Pinochet's nose was a success, its morality is still hotly disputed, especially by those on the left. But Procacci airs these concerns, while concentrating on the clashing personalities of the squad members, who have clearly not let any bygones rest after all this time.
It's wonderful to see Pietrangeli, Bertolucci, Panatta, Zugarelli, and Barazzutti on such fine form and willing to speak openly about the tension that somehow made them such an effective team. As one might expect, Panatta is as charismatic as ever, but Zugarelli is splendidly grouchy and unrepentant over the bizarre Barcelona incident. Indeed, seeing Panatta wading into the crowd prompts one to wonder why Procacci opted not to refer to the infamous `Battle of Santiago', when the hosts kicked lumps out of the Azzurri in winning a group game 2-0 at the 1962 World Cup.
Mimmo Calopresti covered the controversy over the doubles attire in La maglietta rossa (2009), but Procacci gets to the bottom of the affair. He doesn't, however, mention that Italy lost their crown to Australia the following year and failed to regain it against the United States in 1979 and Czechoslovakia in 1980. But this is a must for all sports fans, if only to see Panatta's Brut 33 commercial.