“Sneaks back to the grave”

Directly from Valea Domanului, from the place where Chivu took his first steps in football, before reaching Craiova, the launch pad to the west, the Italian journalists took a look at the city and the most important places, to which Chivu's beginnings are connected.

In an extensive material, published in Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italians told step by step the experience in Romania, what impressed and surprised them at the same time, how they found the place that will remain “home” for Cristi Chivu and details that they will take with them, in their luggage, when they return to the peninsula.

“I was in Romania to discover the origins of the coach from Inter. From the hat-trick scored with a broken hand, to the penalty converted after the death of his father, who was also his coach and whose name the stadium bears today”, this is how the material from Gazzetta dello Sport, signed directly from Romania by the Italian journalist Francesco Pietrella, begins.

Reșița, taken by the Italians, after Chivu became champion with Inter

“The wide and airy square of Reșita is like a wicker basket where whispers and legends intertwine. It reaches out to the few strangers who pass by, enveloping them with gentleness and a deep sense of hospitality.

The local elders, former factory workers who grew up with their ears pricked and their mouths closed during the dark years of Nicolae Ceaușescu's dictatorship, take out faded photos from their pockets showing dark red T-shirts.

“See? These are Mircea and Cristian, his son, a few months before the father's death». This is the day when Cristi, as everyone calls him in Reșita, a city of 60,000 inhabitants, nestled between the mountains of central-western Romania, suddenly became a man.

Behind his first league title as coach at Inter – and a Coppa Italia final to play for to achieve the double – is a story closely linked to the loss of his father. It is the promise that young Chivu, at 17 years old, with dark hair and deep eyes, made to him on his deathbed, the day before he scored his first goal as a professional, from the penalty spot.

“I will become a footballer and I will take care of our family”, said Cristi to his father, who passed away at only 44 years old. It was April 1, 1998. Mircea Chivu, a legend of Reșița, first a player and then a coach, had passed away less than 24 hours ago.

Thousands of people attended the funeral, and those who were present told us that “some even climbed the buildings under construction to be able to say goodbye”, noted the Italians, at the beginning of the material made in Romania.

Cristi Chivu's childhood, in Reșita, through the eyes of Italians

Then they went deeper and brought to the fore the first years of Cristi Chivu's life.

“”There are no photos, no videos, nothing. He lives in the memories of those who saw him in life”. That's what Alex Horvath, a 30-year-old supporter from Resisi, who was our guide, driver and translator, told us about the context in which Cristian grew up.

A child who at the age of nine, when Ceaușescu's regime collapsed under the weight of bullets, didn't have a television to watch the matches on.

“The regime was tough”, explained Alex. “My grandmother used to put blades of grass in the soup to give to my mother to eat. The grandfather tried to escape by swimming across the Danube. And only Ceaușescu's speeches were broadcast on television”.

Resita was the third city in the country to take up arms to revolt. The traces of those more than forty years of communism are visible to the naked eye, walking along the Bârzava river: dilapidated houses, a rusty and rickety funicular that cuts the city in two, concrete blocks.

Chivu grew up in one of these Soviet blocks in the northern part of the city. He attended High School No. 8, a hundred meters from his apartment, in a neighborhood built for workers, and in the afternoon he played football in the yard.

Volunteering and the first stories with father Mircea Chivu: “They never went together”

“Once he broke his hand, but he entered the field and scored a hat-trick”, it is told here. People remember the candy brought to the school after the games and the volunteer actions. At ten years old, Cristian was part of a group of children who collected donations for families who had lost someone during the revolution. A matter of education.

“His father”, says Alex, “was so strict that he made him return home by tram from training. The highlight is that, back then, he was the coach. They never went together.”

Cristian's first team was in red and black stripes: CSM Reșița, today in the second league, wears the colors of Milan and is proud of a synthetic pitch donated by himself a decade ago.

Cristi Chivu's mother, message about the champion son

But what strikes you as soon as you pass the gates – also red and black – is a marble bust at the entrance to the tunnel that leads to the field.

The stadium is called Mircea Chivu, and the sculpted moustache, specific to him, belongs to him. The statue was inaugurated in 2010, in the presence of the son and his mother, Mrs. Mariana, who was on vacation in Spain during the days I was in town. She lives between Reșita and Timisoara. Through Alex, our translator, she declared herself “proud and moved by Cristi's journey”.

Which, almost thirty years ago, showed personality right from the start. Leontin Doană, former teammate and current coach of Reșița, reminded us of this. “His father told us to go on the field and win for him. And he asked the same of his son.

The next day, we beat Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț at home with 5-1. Cristian scored from the penalty and raised his arms to the sky, in tears, collapsing to the ground, covered by all of us. The stadium chanted his name”, added the Italians, in the extensive material produced in Romania.

Cristi Chivu and the “sneak” visits to Reșita, to his father's grave

“Chivu is the pride of Resita”, the journalists from the peninsula then continued. “Valentin Ciucur, the team manager, tells us that back then he was “respectful, very shy and quiet”.

Cristian Bobar, the president of the club, revealed to us that he met him for coffee a few years ago. “He had offers from several clubs: Ajax, from Saudi Arabia, Dinamo and Rapid Bucharest, but he refused them all. Dream only Serie A».

An achievement achieved through work, effort and, above all, through silence. This has been Cristian Chivu's secret weapon for almost thirty years. One last anecdote, close to the realm of legend, was revealed by Bobar and it says it all:

“I heard that, from time to time, Cristi sneaks back to Reșita, leaves a flower at his father's grave and then leaves. Just the two of them, quietly. No one has ever seen it, but here we all believe it happens» .And we believe the same”, the Italians concluded the material from Romania.

To illustrate it, the journalists from Gazzetta dello Sport took an image of Cristi and Mircea Chivu, a photomontage made by GSP, with images from the archive.

The young Cristi Chivu, next to his father, Mircea / Photo montage Diana Vasilescu (GSP) / Photo source: Gazeta Sporturilor Archive