Former Inter coach Roberto Mancini has paid tribute to ex-Nerazzurri defender and assistant Sinisa Mihajlovic, after he passed away yesterday following a lengthy battle against leukaemia.
Mancini and Mihajlovic were teammates at Sampdoria and Lazio between 1994 and 2001, before the former became Inter coach in 2004 and brought the latter with him as a player.
After Mihajlovic had played under Mancini for two seasons, he retired as a footballer in 2006 to become an assistant coach beside him, and in an interview published in today’s newspaper edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Mancini offered a heartfelt tribute to his close friend.
“Since yesterday I no longer have a brother. Even if such blood bonds are sometimes taken advantage of, when talking about friendships, I don’t feel I am exaggerating in defining it like this: for me Sinisa really was, because it was life that made us such. First football, and then life,” the Italian national team coach declared.
“This is a day I never wanted to come. I just think how unfair it is that such a terrible disease took away a 53-year-old boy, a good man, a respectable person.
“It’s hard to find other words when so little time has passed since the moment I said to myself: “Roberto, this time you really won’t be able to see him anymore”. Yesterday he was already gone: the last time he spoke to me not only with those eyes that could say more than words, eyes that sometimes forced you to lower yours, was Tuesday morning.
“I will carry that chat with me forever, all the things we have said so many times to each other, in almost 30 years.”
Mancini went on to discuss the close relationship he had forged with Mihajlovic as teammates and friends across almost three decades, and the impact on football in Italy.
“There were 28 years, to be exact. Teammates and benchmates, always in the dressing room because also, perhaps above all, we got to know each other in there until we liked each other, understood each other, argued, in any case became a support to each other, when for one or the other more became necessary.
“Those 28 years of football and life. I’ve seen the growth of the footballer and leader that anyone who knows about football would have wanted in his team.
“I’ve seen how extraordinary freekicks can become perfect, “impossible”, because I’ve really never seen anyone kick them like him, for me he was undoubtedly the best in the world.
“I saw the birth of the coach he would become and also his children, the joy of becoming a father and the pride, even the fear, of watching them grow up, because some of our paths have intertwined more and more.”
Mancini spoke of the fight that Mihajlovic had shown in battling the disease since first being diagnosed in 2019, and how he had been an inspiration.
“I think I taught him something too, I hope so, at least. He taught me how much strength you can have inside and how much you can give to those close to you, if they want to understand it.
“Sinisa was a warrior, not in a manner of speaking. His war was to prove himself stronger than those who challenged him, but for himself, not to make others feel weak.
“He did it with his opponents, he did it with leukaemia. For him it was always too early to stop fighting and it was never too late to encourage someone, a friend, a partner or a player, not to give up.
“He showed how to do it, since he got sick even to those who had never known him, to those who had only heard of him, to those who didn’t even know who he was but wanted to find out. Because Sinisa fought like a lion until the last moment.
“This is exactly how Sinisa will always remain by my side, even if he is no longer there, as he did in Genoa, Rome, Milan, and later even when we took different paths,” Mancini continued.
“For this reason, now that I’ve said goodbye to him forever, I like to think that it’s not actually true that I no longer have a brother: he simply went elsewhere, wherever he is, and from there he will continue to make me feel his strength as he did with those hands of steel.
“To give me assists like that day in Parma. For years there has been talk of that back-heel goal of mine, but the corner that Sinisa had beaten was designed, and on the pitch we knew each other so well that I knew perfectly where and how that cross would arrive. That corner was a gift forever, because it inspired me to score the most beautiful goal in my life.
“He too scored some beautiful ones, never as good as the last one. The energy he has transmitted to us in these three years, the love for life to which he has educated us. That’s why I still feel him by my side, and he will be there forever,” Mancini concluded.
