A few hours after the national team’s victory in the EURO 2024 opening match, Casa Azzurri was filled with the enthusiasm of children. In Iserlohn, in the area hosting the Azzurri fans and FIGC partners, there was the award ceremony of the competition “Il migliore gol delle nostre nazionali: fai gol anche tu!” (“The best goal of our national teams: score a goal you too!”), which involved more than 250 boys and girls from 50 schools and football schools in 13 German towns. A great party atmosphere at Casa Azzurri, with the excitement of the teachers and parents of the primary and secondary school pupils, as well as the young players of the youth football clubs. Boys and girls from all over Germany took part in the initiative with videos, animations, comics and drawings, reproducing the most famous goals of the Italian and German national teams with imagination and creativity.
For the winners, the award ceremony – in the presence of Ambassador Armando Varricchio, FIGC President Gabriele Gravina and National Team Delegation Head Gianluigi Buffon – but also the joy of attending the first part of the national team’s training session, after the 2-1 victory against Albania. While addressing the winners, Ambassador Varricchio said: “With your participation in the competition you have demonstrated not only your technical skills, but above all your ability to work as a team and to dream big. Today we celebrate your success, but also the spirit of football that unites our countries and lives in each of you.”
In President Gravina’s words: “The Italian Embassy’s initiative has an extraordinary value because it enhances the universal characteristics of football: sharing and participation, especially among young people. Schools and students are the future of a nation and of its civil society. Nurturing the memory of sport is a beautiful testimony of friendship, which binds Italy and Germany beyond football rivalry. I wish to thank Ambassador Varricchio for choosing Casa Azzurri as the venue for the award ceremony. Here we breathe the same values, those of the Azzurri jersey”.
Buffon explained: “When the President asked me to take part in this initiative, I was delighted. I like being among young people, and talking with them about their dreams, their fears, their objectives. Football has a great strength, the power of uniting. Italy is divided into regions, each one with its own dialect, but when there is the national team, parochialism is left aside and we all cheer for the same thing. The fact of having been goalkeeper of the national team, and having won a World Cup right here in Germany, was one of the greatest gifts life could give me. I still get excited, I get moved, you and your parents give me happy memories”.
The competition, in which more than 50 schools and 250 children took part, was won by the Döhrnstrasse School in Hamburg, which reproduced one of Baggio’s goals in the 1994 World Cup. In second place there was the Martin Behaim Gymnasium in Nuremberg, with Philipp Lahm’s goal in 2008 and Helmuth Rahn’s goal in 1954. In third place there were two schools on a par: the Wim-Wenders-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf with Grosso’s goal in the 2006 semi-final scored in Dortmund (in the same stadium that hosted Italy-Albania yesterday) and the Finow Schule in Berlin with Tardelli’s goal in the 1982 World Cup final. The Artistic Work section was won by the 5C class from the Finow Schule in Berlin that reproduced Grosso’s goal against Germany when he was 18 years old with an “artistic” editing.
Photo: Credits (Getty-Figc)
Here are the winning videos:
First place: Scuola Döhrnstrasse di Amburgo – Baggio 1994
Second place: Martin Behaim Gymnasium di Norimberga – Philipp Lahm 2008 e Helmuth Rahn 1954
Third place (on a par): Wim-Wenders-Gymnasium di Düsseldorf – Grosso 2006
Finow Schule di Berlino – Tardelli 1982
Artistic Work section
First place: Finow Schule 5C di Berlino – Grosso 2006