a. A winter in the Rio de la Plata
Luis Felipe Monti (Buenos Aires, 1901) was involved in the first two world cup finals, although the destiny would dictate this to happen in quite different situations...during the first world cup, celebrated in Uruguay, in the cold austral winter of 1930, the Fascist regime sent two secret agents, Marco Scaglia and Luciano Benetti, who arrived in Montevideo for the final (Uruguay-Argentina), these intriguing individuals watched the final in situ, the cold afternoon of July 30, at 3.30 PM, among an impressive crowd of 93.000 people, they acted as Uruguayan fans, and monitored the Argentine players during that match, in particular...Luis Monti.
Monti, Argentina's first goal scorer in world cups (July 15, 1930, 1-0 vs. France), he received an obscure death threat, actually it was directed to his mother, by these Italian spies, who also put pressure on the rest of the Argentine team with menaces, the mission sent by the Duce was clear, and it was double: Argentina shouldn't win the first world cup, and Monti should be taken -no matter how- to play in Italy...versions say that during the half time of that 1930's final, when Argentina still was beating Uruguay 1-2, Monti cried in the locker room.
The match finally ended 4-2: Uruguay's national team was the first champion as this world knew it, this happened long, long time ago, at the very dawn of the professional football era...
b. La Coppa del popolo
...The little man rested both palms on the desk, searched for something ethereal in the air with his stare, and finally said sternly, pointing out each and every word with strange energy:
-"I do not know how they will do it, but Italy must win the next championship."
Unable to escape from the electricity of the man's eyes, the president of the Italian Olympic Committee and Football Association, Gral. Giorgio Vaccaro, answered with timid reverence:
-"We will do everything that's possible, Duce..."
The reply of the leader was emphatic and definitive:
-"No, I'm not being properly understood, general: Italy must win this world cup ... It's an order."
Benito Amilcare Mussolini no longer targeted his storming eyes on his interlocutor, the General Vaccaro, who left the hall with silent steps...
Vaccaro was sent several times by Mussolini to deal with FIFA, and president Jules Rimet, the 1934 candidacy for Italy, as the other candidate, Sweden, mysteriously renounced to organize the cup somewhere in 1932, Italy's bid was chosen: quickly Il Duce trusted the organization on two men: Vaccaro, and the secretary of the Fascist Party back then, Achille Starace: the monster structure was on its road: the official posters would show a Herculean athlete doing the fascist salute with a soccer ball at his feet...also a tobacco company was launched specially for the occasion, the "Coppa del mondo" cigarettes, and a budget of 3,5 million Lire was assigned to the organization.
For some reason Italy decided to boycott the first tournament organized by FIFA in 1930, therefore Uruguay decided to pay them back, declining their participation in Italy '34, decision which was -initially- endorsed by Brazil and Argentina, in support of Uruguay, although both sides decided to paticipate, finally: the Argentine team for the occasion was managed by the Italian coach Felice Pascucci, and featured only 18 players, mostly amateurs.
As soon as the "Albiceleste"s ship arrived, after a long oceanic travel, the delegation of Argentina sent a curious telegram to certain Italian authorities:
"Just landed on Italian ground, the Argentine athletes express their regards with respectful deference, to the head of a visionary government, that's leading the destinies of Italy's rebirth..."
c. From the past come the storms (1930)
Luis Felipe Monti was which -back then- was called a centre half, Monti was nicknamed "double-wide", because of his robust physical presence...the 1930's world cup ended for him and his team mates with threats, and pressures of all kinds, there was a warning from certain obscure Italian agents -as shameless as strange- that if Argentina won the final match, their lives -and the lives of some relatives- would be in serious danger.
As it's known, in the end, the "Celeste" won the final, notwithstanding the enigmatic mission of the Fascist agents continued beyond the world cup, during the rest of that austral winter of 1930...there's a weird fact (among several in this story, or perhaps these facts aren't that weird after all): Luis Monti played back then for San Lorenzo, in the recently professionalized Argentina's football, and he was...a municipal employee at the same time.
With both salaries he earned around 200 Dollars/month, shortly after the world cup ended, he was visited by those two Italian officers who would announce him he would be imminently tempted to play for an Italian club, for a salary consisting of 5000 Dollars/month, plus a house, a car, and other prizes (sic).
They explained Monti clearly: an executive from a top Italian club would interview him in short, and the executive was sent by Mussolini himself.
Months later, Monti was playing for Juventus (curious detail, while the Duce's team was Lazio)...the next step: Monti was urged to accept Italian citizenship, the circle was closed.
For obscure reasons, similar stories happened to other Argentine players, like Enrique Guaita, Raimundo Orsi or Atilio De Maria, who were "nationalized" and finally included in the Italian dream of the world cup, the Fascist world cup, La Coppa del popolo.
d.Your money or your life (1934, June)
The final was there, at hand, at last!
After a quarter-final match vs. a brilliant Spanish side that featured mythic names like Isidro Lángara, or Bosch, and which ended 1-1, Italy could win in a second match 1-0, second match which found the Spanish side semi-destroyed, with half a dozen of players injured, after the first match's impune liberties that the Italian players enjoyed, (granted by the referee of course), to go far beyond the simple "rough play".
La Coppa del popolo would see, finally, the imposing structure of the Fascist panther arriving to the Stadio Nazionale di Roma, it was finally a dream come true, there, at hand! This great triumph for Italy and for the regime, Italia, Italy would redeem its meridional honor in a football stadium, for all the world to see, to taste, to smell the power of the Fascist Eagle rising again, of this new Rome resuscitated by the Goethean will of the strong ones.
The night before the match, June 9, 1934, a tremendous telegram was received in the Italy's concentration, which was read in front of the players (the strangers included):
"Victory or death / Gentlemen, if the Czechs are correct, we are correct, that first of all.
But if they want to win bullying us, the Italian must hit, and the opponent must fall...Good luck tomorrow, guys.
Win. If not so, crash."
Everyone knew that "crash" meant beheading. The telegram was signed by Benito Mussolini.
The next day, June 10, 1934, both teams were waiting to appear for the fight, while the band played Giacomo Puccini's "Himno al sole", 55.000 emotionally inflated spectators, most wearing black shirts, accompanied the notes with vibrant throats, the National Stadium of the Fascist Party was certainly impressive, before and during the first half, fact that did not stop the disrespectful Czechs, who ended the first half drawing with Mussolini 0-0.
Somewhere during the break, the Italian coach Vittorio Pozzo received a laconic message, which perhaps echoed in his mind for years:
"You are responsible for the success, but if you fail, may God help you"
The worries of the Italian players and coach, turned into nightmarish panic, when an obscure Antonin Puc, like a horrible ghost that no-one believed was true, scored the 1-0 for the Czechs, 19 minutes before the match would end: 55.000 black shirts were brutally buried into a frozen silence, more glacial than the death itself, and possibly never before a Roman summer afternoon was colder than during those minutes of agony, until the Argentine Raimundo Orsi scored the 1-1, 9 minutes before the end of Rome...the fasces resurrected from their dry ostracism, Mussolini and his 55.000 breathed again, but the players, and the coach, more than breathe, felt they were returning from an announced Hell...
The story tells that in extra time, the Italian Angelo Schiavio scored the 2-1, for the final apotheosis, for one of the most enigmatic and mystic finals a world cup never had, just because everything at that Stadio Nazionale was, already and forever, unavoidably rarefied, unreal...L.F. Monti, one of the Argentines of Mussolini would relate, decades later, these suggestive words:
"In Uruguay they would kill me if we won. In Italy they would kill me if I lost...after the match, by decision of Il Duce, we were allowed to ask whatever we wanted, women, money, jewels, cars, houses: we were the privileged human beings of Italy."
Mussolini left his shaved head exposed at the breeze of the Roman evening when he marched, ceremonious, to give the Cup to the captain Giampiero Combi, as the Stadium of the National Fascist Party started shouting "Duce"
"Duce..."
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