– WHY DOES HE DESERVE TO BE REMEMBERED AND HONORED ON THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, THE LEGEND OF THE 1946 BALKAN FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP, OUR GIACOMINO POZELLI…?! –
Memorie.al / (“In a moment a gentleman will arrive, who could barely breathe. I am the Director. My name is Spartak Topollaj and I am much honored to welcome you to our Hotel! He is a man around forty, tall, upright, dark‑complexioned, with a friendly gaze…”) Fragment from the early pages of the book ‘My Albanian Grief, or Return to the Land of Eagles’, by the author Aldo Renato Giuseppe Terruzzi.
It is somewhat strange, not to say unbelievable, that most Albanians do not know who Giacomino Pozelli was and what his life was like, between joy and drama – the legendary goalkeeper of the Albanian National Team, Balkan Football Champion in 1946!
The Italian Pozelli family had settled in Thessaloniki and later on the island of Corfu in Greece, around the beginning of the 20th century, where they worked as clerks in an Italian bank.
The Pozelli couple had two children, Aurelia, a daughter born in 1912, and Giacomino, a son born on July 22, 1922, precisely in Thessaloniki.
Towards the end of the 1920s, the Pozellis moved to Albania, specifically to Gjirokastër, where Zog’s Government had accepted the opening of an Italian Credit Bank and where they found hospitality and citizenship from the local residents in the stone city, described like no other years later by our great Kadare, in the unique novel “Chronicle in Stone”!
But this hospitality and the peaceful life of this family, who did not feel at all foreign in Gjirokastër, was suddenly disrupted when the beautiful Aurelia, a true Greta Garbo Gustafsson, who had just turned 18, met in 1930 a group of young men from the city, among whom – taking advantage of his charismatic appearance and his ability to act and deceive – stood out Enver Halil Hoxha.
Mesmerized by her beauty, elegance and intelligence, Enver, who had just graduated from the famous French Lycée in Korçë, with the tireless financial support of Professor Bahri Omari, a democratic personality of KONARE (National Revolutionary Committee), also the husband of his elder sister Fahrije, gets to know her, approaches her and seeks to misinterpret her youthful sincerity and friendship, with a self‑complacency and delusion of protagonism and grandeur that would later turn into paranoia!
Even though she told him she had just become engaged to Renato Terruzzi, a capable bank financier, a dignified and handsome Italian, Enver Hoxha insisted on seducing Aurelia, even deceiving her, telling her that he was preparing to leave for studies in France, and giving her as a keepsake a book “100 Views of Paris”, with a dedication which he closes, without a shred of shame, with the lie: Enver Hoxha, medical student?!!!
As is known, he was awarded a scholarship for Natural Sciences (Biology) in Montpellier, a faculty he never completed, and during the four years there he passed only five exams in total?!
He went to Paris and then to Brussels, where he failed with complete success to obtain any degree in History or Law, was employed as Secretary at the Albanian Consulate in Belgium, embezzled money from the Consul and returned to Albania in 1936.
Offended by Aurelia’s categorical refusal, this handsome man slicked with oil (or brilliantine) dares to threaten and blackmail her and her family, who, after this, requested a transfer, which was approved, and thus they settled in Vlorë, still at the Italian Bank.
Even in beautiful Vlorë of Independence, they found the same hospitality and generosity!
Despite the turbulent war years, they maintained correctness at work and social relations among the good people of Vlorë!
Meanwhile Aurelia married her fiancé Giuseppe Renato Terruzzi, while Giacomino, who had just turned 20, was showing his talent as a goalkeeper with an improvised football team of Italians in the coastal city!
Soon he caught the eye of local leaders and coaches for his qualities and instinct in defending the goal, so they proposed he play with their team “Flamurtari”!
He accepted immediately and was fielded as a starter and guardian of Vlorë’s goal!
He made many friends among the athletes and the sons of well‑known families of the patriotic, democratic and intellectual nobility of Vlorë, and thousands of sports fans loved him as if he were a native of Vlorë and adored him!
As the months passed, it seemed that the “Flamurtari” jersey was becoming too tight for him, so he responded without hesitation to the invitation of Sport‑Klub Tirana, to defend the capital’s goal, where he quickly made friends, especially with the 24‑carat Tirana native, Xhavid Demneri!
The war had just ended and his sister, Aurelia, dignified and beautiful, was married and had just given birth to her only son, Aldo!
But she was not meant to enjoy it for long! “He” could never forget, let alone forgive, Aurelia’s categorical refusal, and now, Comrade Commander, self‑promoted General‑Colonel without schooling, Enver Hoxha, remembered that the day had come to take revenge, as only he knew how to do!
He ordered the arrest of her husband, a supremely correct man, under suspicion that he might be an agent of SIMI (Italian Military Intelligence) and that he must have committed irregularities with finances and the treasury at the Bank?!!!
Neither accusation held, and they were never proven, yet even though none of the men of Vlorë, men of their word and honor, testified against him, his sentence was predetermined: a long and heavy imprisonment in the infamous political prison, the hell of Burrel!
Aurelia, proud and dignified as she was, never turned to “Him”, let alone beg him to forgive her dear and beloved husband?!
The year 1946 came, when Albania would organize the First Balkan Games in Football and Athletics in Tirana, from October 6 to 13, at the “Qemal Stafa” National Stadium, built over 95% by Italians, but it was never understood why it was given the name of that idealistic young man, killed or (suicide) on May 5, 1942, under circumstances that never received a thorough clarification and were covered by the veil of suspicions and mysteries, typical Enverian enigmas?!
Be that as it may, little Albania, but with talented footballers who gave their souls on the field, managed to be proclaimed Balkan Champion, even though in this great post‑war event they faced the well‑known Yugoslav National Team, as well as Romania and Bulgaria!
Pozelli (whose surname was transformed with Albanian tricks into Buzali), Tahiri, Kavaja, Fakja, Vathi, Biçaku, Demneri, Boriçi, Mirashi, Parapani, Gjinali, Spahiu, Llambi, Teliti, Fagu, etc., convincingly defeated the opponents, without denying the great role of the Yugoslav coach, the Serbian Ljubiša Broćić (1911‑1995), who years later even became coach of mighty Barcelona!
Meanwhile, without his sister Aurelia’s knowledge, and taking advantage of the euphoria created by the Leadership, which considered the victory in the Balkan Games as its own merit and the friendship from school in Corfu with Nako Spiru, Giacomino, convinced of his brother‑in‑law’s innocence, asked him to intervene for his pardon!
Nako, as wise and sensible as he was, promised he would do whatever possible!
But he did not manage to save not only him, but not even himself, for in November 1947 he was found (self‑)killed with two bullets, in the office of Kiço Ngjela, Nako Spiru’s assistant, at the State Planning Commission?!
By order of Hoxha and the catiff Koçi Xoxe (Minister of Internal Affairs at that time), even his fiancée, Liri Belishova, was not allowed to see him while he was still alive in the Military Hospital, even though she herself was part of the highest communist leadership!
The greatest irony with Nako, who killed himself like Mehmet Shehu in December 1981, was that Hoxha condemned and rehabilitated him several times, while Mehmet Shehu remained first on the List of Polyagents and Hoxha himself, as it now emerges, remained last on the list of informers?!
Meanwhile, the proud beauty Aurelia, with little Aldo in her arms and bags of food, twice a month took the miserable roads, where transport means were known to be lacking, to meet Giuseppe in Burrel Prison, often under the watch of police and officers with reddened eyes, half‑drunk and greedy for everything!
This story went on for nearly three years, until one day, aware that he was innocent and that someone would come to reason, would release him from prison, and also realizing what Aurelia was going through with the boy, he gave her an ultimatum: not to come to the prison anymore and, together with the family including Giacomino, to return to Italy; otherwise, if one day the police informed him that his wife had come to visit him, he would end his life by suicide?!
Faced with these two ultimative alternatives, as a sensible and dignified woman, plus the instinct to save her son, and with hope at least in God that as an innocent her husband would one day be released and return to his country to his family, she chose the first option, the return of everyone to Italy!
Giuseppe was not only not released, but about three years after their departure, in 1952, it was learned that he had died in prison, supposedly of illness, even though he had an athletic body, was healthy, had never been ill, in fact was as strong as a man who had just turned 50?!
Knowing well the greatest Albanian criminal of all time, who killed with and without trial 6,000 men and 500 women, as well as imprisoning and interning tens of thousands of others, it is appropriate to believe that, as the perfect paranoid and merciless avenger he was, just as he had commonly done from the war until his death with many of his relatives, friends, comrades, close associates and collaborators, he ordered the physical elimination with “scientific” methods by some doctor of the most infamous Nazi type, an extremist like Dr. Josef Mengele of Auschwitz?!
And so, 45 years later, Giacomino Pozelli with his nephew, his sister Aurelia’s son, Aldo Giuseppe Renato Terruzzi, return to Albania, where the dictatorial regime had just collapsed and Democracy had won!
Here begins the second part of this story, worthy of a Kadarean novel, or a Hollywood film!
Newly appointed Chief of Government and Diplomatic Receptions at Hotel “Dajti” in Tirana, soon after the establishment of democratic power, I often found myself in a difficult position to accommodate the many delegations from international institutions that were pouring in every day into post‑dictatorship Albania, where, as is known, the lack of hotels and restaurants was a plague inherited from the miserable and caricatural regime, and all the embassies, as well as our institutions, wanted Hotel “Dajti” at all costs!
My connections and friendships with ambassadors and key diplomats were growing stronger, but Rajerson, Daulong, Fellers, Nesh, for and especially Foresti were the best friends!
One autumn morning, Ambassador Foresti and one of the key diplomats, Pier Giorgio Ramundo Orlando, came to my office and, as I ordered coffees, knowing the difficulty of reservations at “Dajti”, they asked me as a favor to secure two good rooms for two friends of theirs. “No question,” I told them, “and don’t even mention it as a favor, just give me a name to pass on to the reception.”
“Pozelli,” said Ramundo!
“Giacomino?” I asked.
“How is it possible, how do you know him?”
“How could I not know who our hero of the 1946 Balkan Football Championship was! Besides, my mother, a woman from Vlorë, daughter of the Agallinjs, told me the painful and tragic story of Aurelia, the Italian woman, the most beautiful girl of Vlorë, whose family were friends with the Kokoshas, Velas, Haxhinjs, Sharrajs, Agallinjs, Vlorajs, Qemals, etc., etc.!”
How small the world was!
And so I welcomed them and did my best to help uncle and nephew in their purpose of returning, with great longing and grief, wondering how they would find Albania and their friends after 45 years, and whether they would be able to find and return Giuseppe’s remains to Italy?!
What impressed me most and will remain indelible in my mind was their love and sincerity, which clearly showed that they never identified Albania and Albanians with the criminal regime of the vengeful, perverse dictator Enver Hoxha, who had caused them their grave family tragedy!
Aldo, who remembered his imprisoned father as if in a fog, had grown up with his mother’s and uncle’s endless stories about Albania and the Albanians who had loved them so much, but also with the great burden and deep sorrow in his soul that his father’s remains had been left somewhere there, in the red mud, near the terrible political prison of Burrel?!
He had sworn to his mother that, even with his uncle’s help, they would do the impossible one day, when the dictatorship fell; to return to Albania, find his father’s grave and his remains, to rest in his own homeland, Italy!
Mobile phones had not yet entered us, but with the utmost commitment to fulfill Giacomino’s desire, who could hardly wait to meet after nearly 45 years his early friends, I notified all those who were still alive and invited them to Hotel Dajti, where in their youth, especially after the Balkan Games victory, they often came!
What emotions, when they met like brothers of that love as pure as crystal, or like tears in their eyes…!
Later we went to the Stadium, where they had been declared Balkan champions, and we were received by the Secretary of State, Marieta Pronjari‑Zaçe, and the Chairman of the Albanian Olympic Committee, Mr. Jorgoni!
The son of the distinguished footballer and coach Xhavid Demneri, who trained generations of some of the best footballers, the well‑known and passionate journalist Fatmiri (Mneri), gave Pozelli a long interview, during which he expressed himself with admirable modesty about himself and full of love for his friends, his many acquaintances and sports fans!
Their second mission, to find Aldo’s father’s remains, despite the predisposition of the new Central and Local government in Burrel, was unsuccessful! On that cherry‑colored soil where executions took place or where political prisoners who died tortured, broken, exhausted and ill were buried, a football stadium had been built, and excavators and bulldozers had torn apart and scattered the skeletons of the poor souls, who could have been dozens!
Aldo, though understanding the difficulties, was right to insist on the search, which lasted entire days, especially since neither the remains nor the promise and final wish of his mother could be put to rest by the earth!
It should be appreciated that wherever they went, they were accompanied by Toli Arapi, the tireless young man from Vlorë (with family friendship with the Pozellis), who was part of the Albanian staff at the Italian Embassy.
Thus they left, but with their heads turned back toward our Albania and theirs, with nostalgia and grief, they had accomplished only half of their mission!
And for Giacomino, this would be the last time he touched the land of the eagles, which he loved so much, while Aldo would come, and I believe will come again, with the hope that dies last…!
Now it was my turn to go to Italy on a mission, but unlike them, my mission was state and diplomatic!
The Prime Minister, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha, had appointed me Consul General of the Republic of Albania in Milan, in the Italian Republic (Head of Diplomatic Mission there)!
It was a long‑standing dream of mine and a passion of my life, realized only thanks to Democracy!
And the first phone call from the office, there in Piazza Duomo, where our Consulate General was located and where I immediately placed the National Flag, together with the Emblem of the Republic, so that they would stand out from afar and from all sides of the main roads leading to the Square, I made to Giacomino, with whom I had never broken contact!
He was extremely happy and insisted that I visit him as soon as possible, as he was approaching 85 and had heart problems!
As is known, the Consulate General in Milan was the largest and most important one that Albania had!
In Italy since 1990, there lived and worked about 500,000 Albanians, and every day 100‑150 of them showed up for various problems that required solutions, not wanting to know that there were activities, meetings, gatherings, discussions with the highest state authorities, with my 109 counterparts in Milan, receptions and airport transfers of heads of state, parliament, government and our diplomacy, meetings with the many associations of our compatriots, their problems in Italian prisons, death Nulla Osta, legalizations, powers of attorney, permits, receptions almost every 2‑3 nights for the national holidays of other countries, escorting political and economic delegations (such as that of the President of Lombardy, Roberto Formigoni, with 180 of the biggest industrialists and businessmen of Northern Italy), and cultural‑sports delegations (like the arrival of Berlusconi’s great Milan), etc., etc., delayed my visit to the Pozellis in beautiful Orbetello, very close to Grosseto!
Fully known in Italy, where he lived for years, the prominent journalist and successful film director and producer, Namik Ajazi, representative and organizer of the ‘Giffoni’ Festival, winner of international awards, son of the famous democratic intellectual, patriot and anti‑communist Beqir Ajazi, a former student of the French Lycée in Korçë, where he had known and helped in every way the ungrateful exemplar Enver Hoxha, and was “rewarded” by him with long years of political imprisonment (nevertheless, he fortunately escaped the bullet), who survived the prisons and lived long into Democracy. Namik is also the husband of the well‑known journalist Majlinda Bregu‑Ajazi, a Lilli (Dietlinde) Gruber type, who was a Democratic Party MP, Minister of Integration and spokesperson of the Berisha Government (currently Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council in the Balkans), with whom I strengthened my friendship, also because my youngest daughter, Brikena, worked as her assistant for 8 years!
I took advantage of his coming to Italy, together with the talented and tireless RTSH cameraman Ylli Agovi, to propose to them the realization of a special program about Giacomino, a proposal they accepted with great pleasure!
We went and were welcomed with joy and great emotion by Giacomino, his wife, his daughters, sons‑in‑law and, of course, Aldo!
Typical Albanian‑Italian hospitality, during that lunch and that unforgettable day, which Giacomino experienced with special emotion!
After long and heartfelt conversations full of memories and nostalgia, as the sun was setting and dusk was falling, we asked permission from the hosts, who accompanied us with tears in their eyes…!
A few weeks later, after having heart problems for some time, the great heart of this wonderful man stopped beating!
The greatest honor for Giacomino Pozelli was paid on September 11, 2007, when before the start of the football match Albania – Italy (Under‑21s in Durrës, won by the guests with a goal by Acquafresca), broadcast live by RTSH and RAI, by decision of the main referee, Austrian international Robert Schörgenhofer, not 1 but 2 minutes of silence were held, 1 as an Italian and 1 as an Albanian! (Unique this)!
A delicate moment was overcome here, because bureaucrats of the Italian Federation, for unclear reasons, were hesitating about the 2‑minute silence, so I immediately called on my mobile our Prime Minister, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha, who spoke with the Italian Prime Minister, Prof. Romano Prodi, and everything, was settled as it should be! During the 2 minutes of silence in the stadium, the great sportscaster and my friend, Bruno Pizzul, read a CV of Pozelli, prepared by me, and Italy (as well as thousands of Albanians on both sides of the Adriatic) learned the truth about the life of a wonderful man and the legendary goalkeeper of the Albanian national team, Balkan Champion!
The main TV news program at 20:00 broadcast a Special (about 10 minutes) dedicated to our Giacomino, illustrated with numerous photographs and sequences from the documentary by the passionate Namik Ajazi, well‑known journalist, director and producer!
I felt relieved that September evening, after the honors and tributes, more than deserved, for an Italian who loved Albania as much as his own Italy! Memorie.al
