Gamechangers: Tomori
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Who knows if he knows, I don't care.
00:03 Yet, in January 2021, he managed to give Milan sliding doors.
00:09 What Milan hoped 13 years earlier to receive from another central defender of Vaglia,
00:15 Branislav Ivanovic, the Serbian rock of Smerska Mitrovica.
00:20 Ivanovic was in fact a strength point of the Moscow Lokomotiv in August 2008
00:26 and Milan made every effort to bring him to the red and black jersey.
00:31 Milan realised, challenging the Lokomotiv in the summer tournaments of those years,
00:36 how strong Ivanovic was.
00:38 But there was no possibility, from an economic point of view, to take him off the blouse.
00:43 So much so that it remained a forbidden dream and in his place he wore the red and black jersey,
00:48 the Swiss Philippe Sendeos.
00:50 In fact, Branislav Ivanovic became a starting defender, an iconic Chelsea flag.
00:57 And when Fik Ayotomori started, from the youth of the Blues,
01:01 in the Cobham Sports Centre, to launch the first glances at the first London team,
01:06 in the centre of the crowd, there was him, Ivanovic, the forbidden dream and never realised by Milan.
01:13 But then here are the sliding doors.
01:15 Unlike the Serb, Fik managed to go from Chelsea to Milan,
01:20 to realise the dreams of the Red and Black fans.
01:23 Fik Ayotomori arrived in Milan in the prime of his life in January 2021,
01:26 while, if he had arrived in the summer of 2008, Ivanovic would have been accompanied by shouts and fanfare.
01:32 And instead, silence and discretion for Fik.
01:36 Little known by the criticism of Italian football,
01:38 he is still looking for himself in his crossroads of technique and nationality.
01:43 English defender, Ayotomori, but Canadian citizenship,
01:48 a very different nation from the British one and of Nigerian origin.
01:52 One Ayotomori, many Ayotomori.
01:54 A reality that seems to emerge also from his baptismal name,
01:57 kilometric "Oluwafika Yomi, Oluwadamilola".
02:01 Almost a labyrinth.
02:02 And inside the views of this labyrinth, Fik needed to find himself when he set foot in Milan.
02:08 Just like that.
02:09 In Chelsea, he was not able to put roots,
02:11 even if the Blues fans had understood that there was something in him.
02:15 So much so that they would have liked him to stay,
02:17 they did not want him to end up in the cauldron of the various technical crises,
02:20 of the changes of coach of Chelsea in those years.
02:22 They had sensed that there was something serious,
02:25 robust, deep, in the way of playing football, of Tomori.
02:29 But the games for him were few in London,
02:31 and he needed to go and look for new challenges,
02:33 a new conviction and a new awareness of himself.
02:36 Here is Milan.
02:38 And from the story we are about to hear, directly from Fik,
02:41 this motion of the soul, this inexpressive feeling, emerges.
02:45 Just like a very important fact that Tomori tells,
02:50 and that is that the right move was received at the moment he entered the cup room of the Milan house.
02:57 The trophies, the Museu Mondo Milan, a journey to the center of the red-black universe,
03:02 the understanding that Milan is Milan.
03:05 They may not have been something of an interlocutor to then return to London,
03:09 but they may have been, instead, also the crowning of an ambition,
03:13 the realization of many dreams,
03:15 the re-win on many games played on the bench or in the stands.
03:18 But let's hear it all from him,
03:20 because Tomori tells it with particular words
03:23 that touch the sensitivity of all the fans of Milan.
03:29 When I arrived in January 2021,
03:33 I was not in my best moment,
03:38 because I haven't played in a long time,
03:41 in England, Chelsea,
03:43 I played almost a year ago.
03:46 When I arrived, I had a feeling that I had to do my best
03:52 to go on the pitch again.
03:55 From the first game I played, when I went to the Milan house to see the museum,
04:01 I saw all the trophies that Milan have won in history.
04:07 I felt that this is a club that has something, something different.
04:12 When I arrived, the stadiums were empty,
04:16 but I felt the sensation of the club's history in the empty stadiums.
04:22 I knew I wanted to stay here since March,
04:28 and now I've been here for almost three years.
04:32 I am very happy here and with this club.
04:35 Milan and London.
04:37 They are not and will never be two banal cities.
04:40 They are not and will never be two distant cities.
04:44 Because there are so many points of contact.
04:46 There is business, there is laboriousness, there is the city.
04:50 Both in the British capital and in the heart of the heart of Italy.
04:54 But they are very different in terms of football.
04:56 London has more infrastructure, more stadiums, more teams, more derbies, more rivalry,
05:01 an incredible territorial extension, more airports.
05:04 While, if we want, Milan is less extensive, less tentacled,
05:08 but it has that Champions League DNA from its own, today.
05:12 That DNA from the Champions League Cup,
05:15 in the always fascinating night of football times.
05:17 A DNA that London, even though it has a special tradition,
05:20 has always struggled to wear.
05:23 London-Milan, Milan-London.
05:26 Two great environments of life, of business, of the future, of football.
05:29 Ficaiotto Mori can say that he has lived both as protagonists.
05:32 Because the Chelsea fans have repeatedly regretted it.
05:36 And because the Milan fans in San Siro, in Milan, at the football stadium,
05:40 applauded it and elected it their idol.
05:42 For those celebrations, after the goals of Milan,
05:45 in which the body language of Fic, after every goal,
05:48 seems to shake, seems to vibrate,
05:51 celebrating with the soul and entering into total harmony with the rumble of the stadium.
05:55 Of course, of course, Tomori is one that London and Milan know well.
06:00 Milan is different from London.
06:02 London is a mess.
06:04 Milan is quieter.
06:06 The atmosphere, the weather, is much, much, much better.
06:11 And yes, my friends also come here to watch the games,
06:19 to see the city, also my family.
06:22 We can go out, we can eat something, drink something.
06:26 And yes, since I arrived here, we have found the city.
06:31 Yes, we feel good.
06:33 And yes, everything is fine for me, for them, when we are together.
06:39 Just to live in this city.
06:42 I feel good, my family and my friends too.
06:48 When he is in the stage fear, Tomori cannot help but be the protagonist.
06:53 For how he participates in the game, for how he risks interventions,
06:56 always taking on his responsibilities,
06:58 for how he incites his teammates,
07:00 shaking and shouting, as a vocal leader.
07:02 He is destined to never go unnoticed.
07:05 Whether he plays with confidence or not, you can see it, you can see it with the naked eye.
07:09 When he is in a good mood, the discussion with the attacking opponents ends quickly.
07:13 His ball.
07:14 When he is in a good shape, he also takes on the opposing area,
07:17 as in the first months of the season 2023/2024,
07:20 in which he scored at Cagliari, at San Siro against Frosinone, at Salerno.
07:24 Yes, Salerno.
07:26 There was everything Tomori.
07:28 A stadium filled with the concreteness and theatricality of his physique
07:32 and his way of being on the pitch.
07:34 He scores, then stops.
07:36 And on his injury, Milan is disoriented and scores.
07:38 Ficaiotto Tomori.
07:40 One who always takes the stage, always as a protagonist,
07:43 and never as a comprimary.
07:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]