Alberto Manni, director together with Francesco Cordio of the documentary ‘Maestro, il calcio a colori di Tommaso Maestrelli’which tells the life of the historic coach of Lazio’s first Scudetto, told how the project was born. “It’s a beautiful story beyond the Lazio issue, because his life was so important, spanning much of the twentieth century, he was born in 1922 and left us, like all heroes who die young, in 1976. In these 54 years old he has done a lot, the fascinating thing is the richness of life, of what he has managed to achieve. We know him as the kind man, the good person, but he was much more. First of all, he was a visionary coach and we talk about him a lot, with some very beautiful moments together with Stefano De Grandis, with a subbuteo table placed inside the Olympic Stadium, where we talk about how the futuristic Lazio team played”, explained Manni to the microphones of Laziality.
The premiere of the film will be screened on Friday 25 October at 9pm, at the Teatro Olimpico in Rome, with a second repeat on Sunday 27 October at 12:00. Subsequently there will be a reduced programming in cinemas and then it will be broadcast in a reduced format for scheduling reasons on Rai2, for now the date is 6 January 2025. From there it will be possible to see the extended version on RaiPlay”.
“The film is called ‘Maestro, the color football of Tommaso Maestrelli’because he brought total football to a black and white Italy for the first time, the famous little Holland that was talked about was his Lazio. He did things that Holland did later. Little is said about it, it is only talked about how he was a psychologist in managing this crazy team, all true, but he had extraordinary ideas and knew how to bring out the best in his players. He also had these skills with the teams he coached before, for those who don’t know he was the first to bring Reggina to Serie B, which for a provincial reality like that was an extraordinary result, he brought Foggia back to Serie Playing spectacular football: I remember he tore Lazio to pieces.”
Many personalities were involved in this project. “We wanted different voices, starting from Premio Strega Edoardo Albinati and Riccardo Cucchi who talked about the second Scudetto on the radio. Then obviously there are Gigi Martini and Giancarlo Oddi and I’m already telling you to get your handkerchiefs ready, because there will be truly touching moments. I don’t want to forget Albertino Bigon, who won a Scudetto as Napoli’s coach, and who told us how Maestrelli was an inspiration. We involved Guido De Angelis and Bruno Giordano, who told us some very funny things. He, Martini and Oddi will be present at the premiere on October 25th”.