WHILE THE LEFT BACK of Italy’s national football team was taking a run-up to deliver the decisive penalty in the 2006 World Cup, Giovanna Sordi got up from the worn sofa in the small apartment where she had lived for fifty years. She had no one to say good-bye to; her husband Amedeo had joined Elisa ten years earlier. From that day on and every day since, she had left flowers on their graves. And although she had never received any justice in all those years, she would find the truth now. Slowly she crossed the living room of the small apartment. She passed by the closed door of the room where her dream was born and vanished. She went out onto the balcony, taking no notice of the jubilant cries of the people around and the crowds in the street: she knew exactly what to do.
She landed on the pavement sixty feet below at the very moment all of Italy exploded into unrestrained joy.