Scusate se insisto

He spent six seasons with Inter, making 216 appearances and scoring 30 goals. He made the European Cup semi-finals in 1981 and won the Coppa Italia the following year. His seemingly impossible pieces of play made the fans fall in love with him. He was somebody with dribbling in his blood and Gianni Brera gave him the nickname ‘Dribblossi’. This is all despite a lack of consistency which probably cost him his place in the triumphant trip to the 1982 World Cup in Spain. But, his status as a starter out on the left is still secure with the Inter fans. The physical football of today probably lacks a pure talent such as Beccalossi.

His two right-foot goals despite being a natural left-footer saw San Siro explode with joy and it was enough to wrap up Inter’s twelfth Scudetto. He was a star of the title-winning campaign with seven goals, only Altobelli had more. That famous derby also saw the birth of a catchphrase. The story goes that ‘Becca’ went up to the Milan goalkeeper Albertosi after the match saying “I’m called Evaristo, sorry if I insist on it.” “It’s a nice old story and I still enjoying saying that phrase every now and then even if I never actually said it to Albertosi afterwards,” Beccalossi explained later. “It was one of my teammates and then I was attributed with it and it stuck.”

It was rainy and muddy and he barely managed to stay on his feet on a pitch that wasn’t the best for someone like him. Inter hadn’t won a derby in five years. It was the derby on 28th October 1979 which saw Evaristo Beccalossi enter the hearts of Inter fans as one of the purest talents in Inter history. For the older fans, he was like Mariolino Corso or Alvaro Recoba for the younger.