ShaunijeW

Lardy · @ShaunijeW

9th Feb 2016 from TwitLonger

Cellino video translation.


CELLINO: << But is it an interview? >>
JOURNALIST: << No. (kidding) >>
CELLINO: << is it a full interview? Eh eh eh (laughs) >>
JOURNALIST: << Yes, it is >>

CELLINO: << If I go away from Leeds I'm done with football. In life you have to admit that you can’t do more or that you're not good enough. I thought it was easier in England.
There is no comparison. It is a different kind of football, it is not easier, pay attention; you are moved to a very high sacrifice. There they don’t speak Italian, so you have to learn English. It is cold, guys, you need to play in 2 degrees below zero; the cold is too much; you need to play with t-shirts and I can not sit with a blanket to watch the game, there is too much cold, really. And they play in t-shirts. They are barbarians, what the f**k. There is also different stuff, difficult, scary. Fear is I think that I can’t go into the Premiership also.
I tell you this that will make you laugh: The new coach came from some good matches… I was in the locker room, you can not smoke there, so I found the place where I could secretly smoke under the stairs.
Before the game, five seconds, I took a coffee, I smoked a cigarette tucked secretly in a hole that I found under the main stand, then I went to the field... the match had been underway for three minutes and a half, I sat and I looked at the backboard:
Leeds 0 Blackburn 2
What the f**k Steve, who was near me, look at that, it brings bad luck what they wrote on the board 2 to 0 please change that. They look at me and tell me: “What are you saying President?”
"Eh?" (indicating the board)… oh two minutes and 20 seconds the opponents have scored two goals; They were very aggressive. Oh and at some point someone told me: “Cellino, Cellino" - twenty supporters of my team - "time to go". And I said: “but why don’t you go away?!"
And the supporters: “we pay!”
So I: “No, you pay to see the game. To criticize me you need to pay an extra” and I put 5 pounds more for each one ticket (laughs).
Wait a minute I'll explain what happened. Outside the stadium there is a sly guy who put a fake stand and he sells beers; consider that in England you can’t live only on television rights. The Leeds society lives with tickets and beer, that is sold at the stadium, and season tickets. We collect about 40 millions per year with season tickets and beers only. So if you put the stand in front of the stadium with a bar to sell the beers, what Can I do?! So I said: those that go to this bar, that are the friends of this sly guy, because they are the supporters that criticize us also, they need to pay 20 + 5 pounds with beer included… (laughs) and they are very angry and criticize me for this.

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Repenting is human. It was a choice to make, what could I do? Should I stay in Cagliari? We had no stadium, the “Sant’Elia" that was falling, it was collapsing, it was destroyed. They have the Cagliari paid maybe for, my mistakes, my arrogance, my way to criticize some powers that I thought were not right, but it was paying the Cagliari for this.
The Cagliari society and me had a lot of debts and we had a Fiat 500 for four in my family. We slept two in the front seat and two in the back seat. Then I bought a house with the money earned with a football player that I sold. I have had the same house for 30 years, before I got married and after that I got married, after and during the Cagliari experience. Some years ago I had a car better than that I have now, because I have no car. They took my car, I haven’t a boat, I have nothing.

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Did I earn a lot of money? eee…. Let's just say that: with Cagliari we lost a lot of money. Then the Cagliari have also earned the money that has been reinvested with much pleasure. And I am not so rich that I can lose 50 million or 100 million per year. If you haven’t got the money, you need to be clever. I need more money than others because I have less money than others, so with the money that I put and with the dedication that I gave, I think that I did a good football career. Without a stadium It’s so hard go on with the career, do you agree? We played two years in Trieste.
That was my choice. We had to play the last two matches at home, they had closed the stadium from 6 months, the ovest stand and north stand or the south stand, saying that the stadium had problems, every week. We had to start the next championship without a stadium.
The last two matches we played were against Juventus and Inter at home, to collect a penny that we needed, I went to Trieste trying to make people understand that it was time to address the problem of restructuring the stadium. I did it because no one believed me, so we left. They closed and dismounted the stadium.

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The supporters didn’t criticize me. I love Cagliari. We suffered so much together. You can not always win… when you lose a match you have to be angry with someone. I always exposed myself. It is normal. If I was able to be angry with someone…Sometimes I was angry with the coaches a bit too much. They pay for it all. Sometimes I talked with the supporters, that's not the speech. The different speech is that when I talked about I had the 500, Cagliari was a 500. You can’t win a Formula One race with a 500. Now I have a Ferrari to be restored, which is a machine that has more potential than Cagliari, so I want to see if I’m able to drive it. Buying Leeds and selling Cagliari wasn’t my first intention. I can say that the approach I had the first time with Leeds, it's like when you're in love with a woman and you go with another because you don’t want to go another time with the old woman. It’s like to take a medicine not to take another medicine.

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When I do the comparison of the 500 and the Ferrari, it has been translated deliberately from my English in an offensive and bad Italian for the Cagliari supporters. They translated it, and I never said this.
I ran with the 500 in Formula One, but we ran with a 500 with wide wheels and a great engine. The Leeds team is a Ferrari, although rusty and a little old, but I want to see if I'm good.
I was proud to have my 500. I wish I still had it.

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Lotito ... when I was there I was checking him. Now Claudio exaggerates, but he’s one who works well. Sometimes he exaggerates a bit, but because he has many qualities.

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I’ve seen the end of the football careers of Matteoli, Gianluca Festa, Zola, Lopez. The end of the career of a football player comes. The attachment that they have and the trauma that there is in the stopping playing, it’s a tragedy for the football players. Even for me. No one wanted for Conti and Cossu to become old. I would remain forever young too. I don’t forget what they gave to this team and to me particularly. They gave loyalty, sacrifice, they gave so much. We were a nice group. The years pass, and, guys, the president must not play, but they must do it!

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I saw exceptional guys. Daniele (Conti) was like a son to me, Naingollan, Astori, Dessena, Nené. Guys like that with Cagliari…..…. Pisano, are we kidding?! I remember all of them. Guys who did not stay in Cagliari for the money.

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We had some players ... we had one of the biggest leader of the world... Daniele Conti! A humble guy who had a lot of fear of important matches. Daniele Conti, a football player who can change a team positively, a decisive role. There isn’t a central midfielder like him. Then Cossu, we took him as a joke and he saved us. Another is Jeda, a lot of important players, Oliveira, Francescoli, Errera, Valdes.

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David (Suazo) was ….. when I bought him many people laughed, because he was Honduran. David was at first a man and then an outstanding football player! Is he still with Cagliari?
JOURNALIST: Yes, he is.
CELLINO: He was a nice purchase. David is a great guy. When I increased his salary he played better, one of the few who did that. Langella, Esposito, Zola though..…

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The football players are like that. But when you have football players who make you win, you can change the coaches as you want. The problem is when they didn’t win. They wanted to change coaches ... or hold. They eventually wanted to keep the coaches that made them play even. Some Years ago you could change the coaches and the football players won alone. I remember my guys with Trapattoni, that team ... Sometimes people do not realize that the football players change the coaches, the president doesn’t do that. And if players don’t like the coach what can you do? Do you change 25 football players? You must change the coach.

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Mazzone …what the f**k. I will never forget him, he was my “first lady”. I can’t forget him…Mazzone. He “traumatized” me. He “punched” me, really. (laughs)

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The year that we went in Serie B with Olivieri we sold 100 billions (lire) of players. I waste a lot of that money. Mayele (Jason), do you remember? Macellari ? we had a Uefa Cup team. Demoted in disgrace. We needed just one player in the locker room to burst the Cagliari ... just one player.

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There is an area in the Cagliari society where I didn’t put my hands and it went well. I had to beat to change the soccer nets because Gianfranco controlled all the money. Gianfranco Matteoli had autonomy and he produced impressive results. He kept a policy on Sardinian football players where I was skeptical because it seemed too focused only on Sardinia. It had to be balanced, and instead it paid us and it gave us some important players. I had four or five youth players into the first team in Serie A. Murru is a spectacular player, Pisano, Sau, and many others who had an equally good value.

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With some more experience in the Cagliari we could win it. However, when Uefa changed the referee, five days before the match, there was a great referee for the semi-final, I had some doubts. We had the quarter-final against Juventus and the semi-final against Inter and now that we know how Uefa and company is, we know that it's not an accident.
We won 3 to 2 against Inter at home, without five important football players. When we went there to the return match with all players, they massacred us. The referee gave us a penalty that wasn’t, one for each one that there wasn’t …. they massacred us, and I wasn’t an expert of football.

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We never sold a match, and I never heard that one of my players had done it because my players did not. But not because I had the cameras. … because I was like an example for them. Cagliari was a family, it was not a football team.

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Why did I send away the coach?! Why did I send away Allegri too?!
We were second in the first part of the season. In Udine I saw things that honestly ... maybe because Allegri was getting a lot of phone calls from Milan, Inter, Juve, Atletico and I didn’t get him. The Cagliari team had a slump because Allegri was distracted, I do not know why.
I have sent away Allegri who is the coach that I love more than others. In 15 matches we collected 3 points only.
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JOURNALIST: Very expensive! (Allegri when he was a Cagliari football player, not the coach)
CELLINO: We paid him 14 billions (lire), we had "stolen" him from Inter, that bought another player because he had less price. I was not sure for Allegri, so I asked Vitale and he told me: “Yes, he is a nice guy” and I: “Well what the f**k for 14 billions…..”



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A lot of years ago the league didn’t stop one time for the national teams matches, every week a different national team played. So we did a week without defenders, a week without central forward, a week without central midfielder. The Swedish football players departed and we remained without center-back and goalkeeper. The Uruguayan football players departed and we remained without midfielders. We were always without team.

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Perez said to me: “what’s the name of that thing, of that animal” and all of us: ”There isn’t the Armadillo here!”.(laughs)
"Enzo Pizza Fortunato”( a nickname of a friend of Cellino) didn’t like Perez, so he brought him back from the retreat in the Andes ... no in the Dolomites, up to Perugia… to Santa Caterina - I don’t know where it is - with a Fiat Uno without air conditioning in August. “8000 kilometers” and there was too hot. He arrived that he had lost 20 kilos.
I remember that Mazzone came to my office in Piazza Deffenu (a place in Cagliari), I introduced him to Perez and he said: “(patting) Guy, get the f**k out of here, come on”. (laughs)
With Perez after the training, we had one with the tendon broke, another that couldn’t kick the ball, what the hell. So I said: “What are you doing Perez” …But he don’t understand Italian.

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Perez changed the team captain every week. I wanted Bisoli as captain, and he wanted to put a Uruguayan then what he done:
He said: “I change the team captain every week”…. and he did this.

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Fabian O'Neill was a clever football player .. He drunk too much, like the English players.
He used to tell me: “I’m Uruguayan, I don’t drink” and I: “But your name is Fabian O'Neill, you're Irish, you’re from Belfast, in the North” and he said: “No, I don’t drink”. Then one day he told me: “President, my uncle, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, all are drunkards, so I am a drunkard too."
So he was always drunk, we picked him up and we put in the bed. He was like a zombie before the match, but I don’t know how he woke up and he won games alone. He was wonderful. I never saw a thing like that. O'Neill ... In fact he went to Juventus, they were to sell Zidane but they didn’t sell him and Zidane remained at Juventus for another year. So O’Neill didn’t play, he went around the city with Montero to drink beer. He returned free to Cagliari. Free, two years later. Ventura retrieved him, but he put Caroli in the field and not O’Neill, so O’Neill told me: “President if Ventura doesn't put me in the field, i'll go away”… And he did it. He gets a plane.
A month later he wanted to return, but seen that he wasn’t European and we were in Serie B, the league stopped him. What a pity.

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Pinilla was one of the few players who I couldn’t understand. A player who could play in Barcelona, one of the strongest strikers in the world. The first year he saved us alone.
The second year he didn’t confirm, and I must say that I never understood him. Because I can not say it is not one that you do not handle well, he is a particular guy, but ….. I never understood.

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Dessena…He had a surgery the year before and I wanted to bring him to Leeds, because he wasn't playing in Cagliari, but he would not come because he was very attached to his son, who is in Italy. Dessena is an exceptional player, but if you do not give him affection, Dessena is dead. If you give him affection, Dessena is a nice player .... I haven’t got his phone number. I knew that he had a big accident which is a big loss to Cagliari. He is a guy who had a shoulder injury when he was in my team too, out for 3 months, a very big loss for the Cagliari team.



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If last year there was Storari, Cagliari would not have gone to Serie B. But Storari is a luxury in Cagliari. He is an outstanding goalkeeper. A very positive guy. He is a great goalkeeper. But Giulini knows goalkeepers because he was a goalkeeper.

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Oliveira…. we bought him when he was 33 years old. When I bought Oliveira, I did not understand that much about football. I arrived in Belgium to take Oliveira and in the meantime I thought that I couldn’t buy Schillaci. I thought that Mazzone didn’t want Weah too and he wanted Schillaci only, but I couldn’t take him. So I went with no players, and with Longo to buy Oliveira, and I expected a blonde, tall, Belgian footballer but in front of my eyes I had a little football player and Longo also said me that he didn’t know this. The price was $5 million, but there was no problem because the League paid the tax for the money change. I was not practical of these things. So I changed money, and the league made me 10 post dated cheques and I did not know how to cash them.

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I bought the Cagliari because Ferlaino told me: “Buy Cagliari, it is a bargain.”
When you're a business man who doesn’t know anything about football you think that you can treat a football team like the other buisinesses and I thought: “Cagliari costs 15 billion, for Fonseca another team will give me 14 billion, so it is a bargain.” So I said yes. A week later I realized that was not so easy.

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If I did not go to the UEFA Cup that year I had made such a big hole that I put in jeopardy all our (family's) companies. An unprecedented recklessness that my father forgive me from up there.
The pressure of managing football, buying the players, the pressure of the supporters, the pressure to win…and God saved me that year. Otherwise I would have come out from under the door.

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Mazzone ... all coaches, that I had, taught me that mistakes can teach you in football. I made a lot of mistakes and I had the necessity to learn quickly. I can learn quickly and I can understand things quickly too.

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I paid him 700,000 euros per year for three years. He had the car with a driver and he had someone that closed the gate on his drive too. Then I went back to Miami, I found him desperate.
The Cagliari and Cagliari football company are educated well.
They are independent corporatists. You'll see Efisio….

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Cagliari ... I saw the league today…..it can not go into Serie A.
Although it may be a little team, it has a good coach, it has important players, and I must say that there is no competition. Serie B, the level of Serie B has collapsed. The problem for Cagliari will be that when it returns to Serie A, it must buy players and spend 50 million euro and i don’t know if it can do that. So we can say that it has a good Serie B team but it is not a team that can compete in the Serie A.

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Speaking with Zeman he said that he was good and the players were all bad. So I told him: “You won with Signori, Rambaudi, Di Biagio, Sharimov, you won with good players ... now you haven’t and you are good like some years ago. When you was at Roma you made a lot of mistakes”… and I told to Giulini: “Giulini, Zeman is a philosophy, if you are strong of heart take it. But if you do that you have to hold on”. Giuliani bought into Zeman but he didn’t hold on.
Zeman is a faith not a way of playing football. You have to believe in him.

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Zola is a great guy. He is a great player but he's too sweet to be a coach. He will never be a coach.
He is a football romantic.

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Everyone makes mistakes and I am the first one to admit I make mistakes more than the others.
I have also paid for mistakes that others have done.
I paid for my own my mistakes three times too, but there is someone who makes them and never pays for them.

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We had dinner in Miami with my legals and this architect spoke about stadiums, about the financiers, and I listened to him. At some point my lawyer said: “talk about money” and I said: ”No, otherwise finance takes everything and we are ruined.” (laughs)


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If I hadn’t sold the Cagliari, I asked, like a team supporter, Silvestrone to be the President. He believed in Cagliari. He was not a crook. He did everything except putting up money.

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You have to thank that the Cagliari is in the Hands of someone. Because if Giulini hadn't bought it, I would have closed it.
But what do you want? Is Giulini bad?! Do you want Silvestrone?!

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Giulini is not superstitious and he asked for it. He did a lot of things like not remove the number 17 from the bench, take away the flag of Cagliari, changes the seat, puts a player who brings bad luck on the bench (number 17 ),.... I told him that he had one that brings bad luck on the bench; and Giuliani said: “ I do not believe in these things”.

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When Cagliari scored against Empoli, I saw the game, we were winning.
I had a severe headache that day. We were 1-0 up, it could have been 3. In the match against Empoli the team was wonderful, a very good game, the most beautiful of Cagliari. Vessino (an Empoli player) went into the field with the number 17, then 17 seconds from the end of the match he made it 1-1. Then you say that you're not superstitious?!
He asked for it.

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He who doesn’t do the exam can’t be fail .. maybe it can be postponed, however, the first time that we went in Serie B was for my temper because I criticized all the referees. It was a disgusting time. They made us go back unfairly.
The second time was to defend a person who I still consider good, wonderful.
The year I was undecided between Guidolin and Ulivieri, that were the coaches who were there. I had a cup team, and I took Ulivieri. I Have been criticized in Cagliari and to defend him I challenged everything and everyone.
We went into Serie B in disgrace.
And that year I saw something: I can’t send away a coach that I dislike because if he wins I have to think for the good of Cagliari and I have to send away a coach that I like thinking of the good of the club.

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