For Silvio Berlusconi, New Colors and a New Cause

Brocchi knows better than most. He has spent most of his career working for Berlusconi and Galliani, first as a player and later as a coach at Milan. “I owe them my life,” he said. He knows that both like to be involved, connected.

“I like it,” he said. “If I sensed coldness, that would put me off. I want to feel part of something, part of the club. Berlusconi calls before games. He likes to know how the team is doing. He is not like a distant powerful person. He has a charisma, an ability to find the right words. That someone so important has time for you means you go out feeling like a lion.”

Berlusconi attends most home games, according to Antonelli, the sporting director, and has appeared at a number of away matches, too. In Antonelli’s mind, Berlusconi was drawn to Monza not just because he wanted to fulfill Galliani’s dream, but also because he “missed soccer a little.”

It is this, perhaps, that is the most convincing explanation for his investment. Monza is not an attempt to revive his political career, or restore his name, or reprise his glory days. It is not simply a favor for a friend. For Berlusconi, soccer was always about power: not just obtaining it, but feeling it.

Berlusconi, those who work with him say, is always happy to pause and talk with fans, to meet and greet his public, to find time to bask in an echo of the adulation he got while he owned Milan, while he ran Italy. This is not a second chance to dominate the world, or to build a sporting empire. But it is the only way he knows to drink in the spotlight, to win favor, to feel what it is like, once again, to be the ringmaster.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/sports/soccer/silvio-berlusconi-monza.html