Paulo Valenti and his show “90 minuto”!

Paulo Valenti (1922-1990)
Novantesimo minuto!
The 90th minute!

We are heading towards 90. In football, it’s those ten minutes, those last ten steps, from 80′ to 90′. Those minutes who take the fan “to heaven or hell”.

Albania has just entered the last decade of communist system. Those are the ten years, from 1980 to 1990. First a little differently, those are the last ten steps towards,. democracy. Italy entered this decade as World Champions in football. It is only the beginning of more than a decade of glamor of the Italian football championship, Serie A.

Almost all the stars of the world are there to give that championship a light like never before. Socrates, Falcao, Alemao, Elkjaer, Briegel, Pasarella, Platini, Boniek, Rrummenigge, Zico, Maradona, Gulit, van Basten… all the stars of the world are there, every Sunday. The stadiums are full. On every television, on Sundays, immediately after the matches, only the show “90 Minuto” is shown.

Smiling as always, the conductor Paolo Valenti, in his own special way, with his voice and especially with his characteristic smile, enters in every family, taking away people’s sadness for defeat or adding joy for victory.

Albania, 1981, 1982, 1983…1986, 1987,…1989, 1990!

Italy next door is the World Championship. It is so close that makes you think if you open the window you can see it! The lighting of Serie A football is so powerful that it penetrates beyond hermetically sealed windows on the Albanians people. On the screens of the few televisions, the loudspeakers placed in every neighborhood, as they come to weaken down.

Those are the last ten steps towards the 90s. Like in football. Ten minutes until 90′.

People go up to the terraces more often. They secretly construct and assemble antennas. Different sketches of antennas are circulating everywhere. Every Sunday, in Tirana, Shkoder, Durres, Vlora and other cities, Paolo Valenti, with his characteristic voice and smile, brings through RAI pictures and comments from every match in Italy as soon as they have finished.

Televisions in Albania are still few. People now come together and increase in front of them. Socrates, Careca, Alemao, Falcao, Zico, Cereso, Junior, Pasarella, Briegel, Elkjaer, Rummenigge, Maradona, Gullit, van Basten, Matthaus, Klinsmann, they are all there. The child in Italy regularly buys the “Pannini” magazine.

The child in Albania spends every afternoon of the week on the terrace to follow his football idols. Children, teenagers and adults in two countries, but completely different realities, follow the same championship. Now every team in Italy has its fans in Albania as well. All together, in two countries, at the same time, they are in front of the screen…

….and having “il grande” Paolo Valenti there, always there, smiling and welcoming.

Every Sunday. Since 1970!

October 21, 1990.

The end of the decade. Paolo Valenti, smiling but very weak and with a weak voice, broadcasts for the last time “Il novantesimo minuto” – The 90th minute.

No one knows that it is the last time to appear on the screen. Maybe not even him… November 18, 1990. Three days ago, on November 15, Paolo Valenti, after a serious illness, was forever separated from the Italian public as well as the Albanian public.

Very successful in Italy and very secretly admired in Albania. As much as Lucio Dalla, Battisti, Adriano Celentano, Pipo Baudo, etc.

The child of the terrace in Albania has now becomes a man. Now, in front of the TV, almost free and thanks to the “the extension called “group-sekonda” – the Albanians invented to get rid and to eliminate the ” the Buzzer – noisemaker” in front of the screen (put by the government of the communist system, to stop Albanian people to follow any of western Tv).

Of course the “90 minuto” continued as usual and as always.
This time it is another great italian name, Nando Martellini who conducts the show with a minute dedicated to the “father” of this broadcast, Paolo Valenti.

Because he wanted to be completely impartial in his show, Paolo Valenti had promised the viewer that, on the day he would appear for the last time on TV, his outfit would contain the colors of the team he was a fan of.

This did not happen. Paolo Valenti did not believe that October 21 would be the last time he directed the show. So, Nando Martellini in honor but also as an unfulfilled wish of Paolo Valentes, says “Paolo was a fan of Fiorentina”!

November 25, 1990. A week later, in the Florence stadium, before the Fiorentina – Lazio match, Fiorentina fans raised a big banner.

It is written “Paolo! We learned it in the ninety minutes!”

The child, now almost a man in Albania, sheds tears. Emotions that belong to the human side of football. Those tears which, in a special way, with his characteristic humor and smile, only Paolo Valenti knew how to dry without his eyes still getting wet, eh…those tears now, he could no longer hold back for the man who accompanied him through television from childhood to adulthood.

It was the year 1990.

The match was reached in the ninetieth minute…

This is a tribute to Paolo Valenti from the generation of Albanian football fans of the 80s.