Baggio - A Memoir

La Pampa stands tranquil to the still acres of its ranches. The whistle of a wind’s morning brisk. A group of tall grass bows over, and so does another, like a wave upon the mandarin painted surface of an acre of Cortaderia selloana, just minutes ago enfolded within the quilt of a shivering Argentina night. A whisper of a Pampas deer as it awakes to the brushing cuddle of a mellow affection. It wriggles its wrinkled nose, and looks up. As the first light of daybreak spreads across the horizon, a gentle whisper rustles through the Pampas. The air is crisp and filled with the earthy scent of dew-kissed vegetation. Amidst this serene tableau, a Pampas deer begins to stir. The deer, still drowsy, flutters her eyes, and it lifts her head, ears twitching attentively to the subtle sounds of the awakening landscape.The grasses sway in unison, their movements a dance choreographed by the wind. The deer stands, its sleek form casting a long shadow across the ground as the sun continues its ascent. It takes a cautious step forward, then another, each movement deliberate and graceful. The world is quiet, save for the harmonious interplay of the natural elements—the rustle of leaves, the whisper of the breeze, and the soft padding of the deer's hooves against the earth.

Baggio feels the wrinkles of his left eyelids touch, he peers his right eye into the scope. Winchester 70, rather bruised. 

The deer blinks. 

Baggio blinks. 

The deer breathes.

Baggio breathes.

The deer stands.

Baggio feels his right index finger make contact with the trigger.

The deer watches.

And he’s there again. The Rose Bowl never looked so golden. And yet as he looked down towards the ground it was colourless. He felt drained. As he stepped up, he felt empty. He looked up. He feels his right sole push off the shallow trimmed grasses of the iconic stadium. He feels his right sole fight against the rough texture of the La Pampa plains. His right laces strike the bottom centre of the ball. His right index finger hits the trigger towards his pumping chest. He watches the ball. He watches the bullet. 

The ball takes flight.

The bullet hits.

But the deer watches. “It was the worst moment of my career. I still dream about it. If I could erase a moment from my career, it would be that one.”

The bullet lands behind the deer.

The ball lands within the crowd of gold.

The deer dashes away, its tiny legs moving in a flurry, the soft ground absorbing the sudden thuds of its hooves. Baggio lowers the gun, a sigh from his lips that blends with the whispering wind. The tightness in his muscles relaxes, and he settles back, the Winchester resting heavily on his knees.

He stands up. And he lowers his head to the angle of the horizon. 

The zephyr's lament resumed, a wistful symphony reverberating across the boundless Pampas. Baggio lingered, his gaze anchored on the horizon, adrift in the maelstrom of bygone recollections. The heft of the rifle upon his knees was a trifling encumbrance compared to the heaviness within his soul. Each inhalation and exhalation filled his lungs, yet left an abyssal void that even the brisk morning air could not assuage.

"The assassination of the Colombian player was the most harrowing event during that epoch," Baggio had once ruminated on the tragic demise of Andrés Escobar. "A harrowing, bone-chilling occurrence that will indelibly scar the tournament's history. All over an own goal... Unfathomable, to perish in such a manner."

Amidst the aftermath of this somber chapter in football lore, and the personal torment of his own missed penalty, Baggio sought sanctuary in the seclusion of his newly acquired 900-acre estate, La Chiquita, ensconced deep within Argentina’s sprawling, desolate grasslands. Here, amidst the susurrus of the breeze and the undulating dance of the pampas grass, he endeavored to evade the spectral hauntings of his career.

Yet, seclusion proved to be a fleeting illusion. La Chiquita soon burgeoned into a nexus of cameras and glaring lights, the unrelenting press besieging his haven. Baggio resorted to illicitly returning from hunting excursions through a side entrance, hours after his companions, in a desperate attempt to elude the media's relentless pursuit. The serenity he yearned for was further disrupted by a troupe of primary school children on an educational sojourn, and the incessant censure from various factions—Jesuits questioning his spiritual convictions and animal rights advocates decrying his predilection for hunting.

An Italian Catholic periodical clamoured for his excommunication for embracing Buddhism, while Italy’s Anti-Vivisection League demanded to know why a Buddhist would engage in shooting deers and animals. Addressing the scuttlebutt that he had fired upon journalists, Baggio wryly dismissed the "colossal falsehood," stating, “I’m an adept marksman. If I had [fired at them], those journalists wouldn't be in a favourable state.”

As the deer bolted away, its spindly legs a blur, Baggio lowered the firearm, a resigned sigh slipping from his lips. The tension in his sinews dissipated, supplanted by a profound fatigue. He rose, his eyes trailing the contour of the horizon, where the nascent light of dawn fused with the lingering nocturnal shadows. He breathed in, he breathed out, yet the internal tumult endured.

He stood there, an isolated silhouette against the vast expanse of the Pampas. The wind murmured its ancient secrets, carrying a melody of melancholy and endurance. In that fleeting moment, Baggio transcended his identity as merely a footballer or a hunter seeking refuge; he was a man grappling with the echoes of his past, poised at the brink of dawn, yearning for the light to dispel the inner darkness.

An athlete’s mind.

A side yet so shadowed upon the painting of the beautiful game like a chiaroscuro sitting underneath the thickening layers of tint, dye and stain - that it almost seem to have dwindled away from the canvas to the outlookers, yet the canvas feels it soaked deep within its face and deep within its body. 

Mental Health does not discriminate.