The View from Bologna

Dear Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos,

I am exceedingly pleased to have the privilege of writing in response to your extremely pleasant and kind challenge. I am addressing you, and through you to all the EZLN, in order to thank you for the opportunity you have given all of us to experience this special relationship. Allow me also to express my thoughts in response to your very, very kind letter. We will play. We will play our game, and I thank you for that. It will be a great match. Perhaps in a field, like we did as children, perhaps surrounded by giant trees. Or in a stadium, in the capital or o�n a rectangle drawn out in chalk o�n the earth, with the dust rising up until it makes us cough. Exhausted, but happy.
[...]
Since we are in agreement, we will bring the balls and you the bitter pozol. If you accept, we will begin discussing the organization with the respective representatives and managers. We hope we can play soon.
[...]
The game will truly be a simple and important moment. Every revolution begins from its own penalty area and ends in the opponent's goalpost.

With so very much admiration and affection, I am sending you and all the zapatista indigenous men and women, my most personal best wishes, as well as those of my wife, my children and the nerazzurro peoples.

Un abrazo,

Massimo Moratti [excerpt from full version, translated by Irlandesa
___________________________________________

Don Massimo,

We have received the letter in which you inform us that your football team, the International F.C., has accepted the fraternal challenge we
made to you. We appreciate the kindness and honesty of your response.
[...]
I am letting you know that, in addition to being spokesperson for the EZLN, I have been unanimously designated Head Coach and put in charge of Intergalactic Relations for the zapatista football team (well, in truth no one else wanted to accept the job). In this role I should, perhaps, make use of this letter to move forward in fixing details about the match.
[...]
And perhaps, if you are in agreement, for the games in Mexico the EZLN would turn to Diego Armando Maradona and ask him to be referee; to Javier El Vasco Aguirre and to Jorge Valdano and ask them to act as assistant referees (or linesmen); and to S�crates, midfielder who was from Brazil, to be 4th referee. And perhaps we might invite those two intergalactics who travel with Uruguayan passports: Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti to do the play by play of the game for the Zapatista System of Intergalactic Television ("the only television which is read"). In Italy, Gianni Mina and Pedro Luis Sullo could be the commentators.
[...]
And, perhaps, in order to differentiate ourselves from the objectification of women which is promoted at football games and in commercials, the EZLN would ask the national lesbian-gay community, especially transvestites and transsexuals, to organize themselves and to amuse the respectable with ingenious pirouettes during the games in Mexico. That way, in addition to prompting TV censorship, scandalizing the ultra-right and disconcerting the Inter ranks, they would raise the morale and spirits of our team. There are not just 2 sexes, and there is not just one world, and it is always advisable for those who are persecuted for their differences to share happiness and support without ceasing to be different.
[...]
With all this (and a few other surprises), we might, perhaps, revolutionize world football, and then, perhaps, football would no longer be just a business, and once again it would be an entertaining game. A game made, as you put it so well, of true feelings.

Perhaps...Nonetheless, this is just to reiterate to you and to your family, to all the men and women of the Inter and the nerazzurro fans, our appreciation and admiration for you (although I'm warning you that, in front of the goalposts, there will be neither mercy nor compassion). As to all the rest, well...perhaps...but...

Vale. Salud and may the green-white-red that clothes our dignities soon find themselves on both lands.

>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomanadante Insurgente Marcos (D. T. Z.)

(designing plays on a chalkboard and fighting with Durito because he's insisting that, instead of the traditional 4-2-4, we should present 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1, which, he says, is confusing).

Mexico, May of 2005.

The exchange is printed in full, and well worth reading, on the excellent z-net