Best Goalkeeper and Superb Opera Singer meet to discuss all sorts of strange things post Poker World Championship 2019 and Adriano Patrick’s transfer to FC Internazionale Milano

Best Goalkeeper in the World, Adriano Patrick (BGK): Hello Marianna Ginger, it is a great honor to meet you.

Superb Opera Singer, Marianna Ginger (SOS): Well, of course, thank you. I am very sorry to ask, but do you know opera? I think this altersation is very, how do you say, we are a very strange combination of people. La strana coppia.

BGK: Sì, un po ‘strano. But not so very strange. You see, my wife, her name is also Marianna.

SOS: Oh? that is very nice.

BGK: It is a beautiful name. my favorite name. I like that it is long and a little heavy to say, it feels like I intended to say just ‘Maria’, and then I didn’t want to finish saying her name, so I make it longer, I add ‘Anna’. this name is, to me, it resembles the sound a man makes when he misses a woman.

SOS: Oh, that is very sentimentale, very romantic. Your wife, I am sure she is beautiful.

BGK: Yes, I miss her.  This season I started playing for Inter Milano, but my wife and children still live in Monaco.

SOS: In Monaco?!

BGK: Yes, Monaco FC was my team for many years, in the French league. So for now I travel between Milan and Monaco. It’s very strange to live like this.

SOS: Monaco, it is very, very beautiful. Why did you leave there?

BGK: There are many reasons, there’s never just one reason for making changes.

SOS: Of course, ovviamente. Right now, I am also in Milano, so of course, you at least have another Marianna near you.

BGK: Oh, for me there is only one Marianna!

SOS: of course! please do not understand what I said in a wrong way! This is not what I wanted to say… this will be fake news, if what I said is not understood correctly! You are, of course, very tall, very impressionante man… but of course, you are also a goalkeeper, portiere, not a man of arts, I do not know how much there is for us to talk about…

BGK: I think I am an artist. Goalkeeping is an art, an art of the spirit. But I have to say I think opera is a strange art –

SOS: Well, of course, I think goalkeeping is a strange art, I think it is strange that you call it art!

BGK: But why?

SOS: Because, of course, it is a sport. Of course, there are sports that I can see like it is art, but football, it is not an art!

BGK: I hope I can change your mind. What sport do you see as art?

SOS: Well, it will surprise you.

BGK: I can guess: archery.

SOS: Archery? Why did you guess this?

BGK: was I right?

SOS: No, but it is a very interesting guess, a very, how do you say, tagliente guess, very sharp. I will tell you. I was very ill two weeks ago. I could not sing, I could not talk, I could not stand. Of course, when you are sick, you must listen to what your body tells you, because your body is asking you to rest. So I listened and I rested, but I became, of course, very, how do you say, bored. I did not want to read a book, because my eyes were heavy. I did not want to hear music, because my ears were tired. I did not want to see anything on television, because my emotions were sad.

BGK: That’s just terrible, Marianna. How are you feeling now?

SOS: oh, yes, thank you, I feel good, thank you. Of course, I am telling this for a reason. Because there was nothing for me to do or want, I looked at the television and by accident I saw there was a poker competition, a world competition.

BGK: The poker world championship!

SOS: Did you see this?

BGK: Of course! I wait for it every year. So you love poker?

SOS: no! I do not love poker and I do not understand this. Playing poker is, what I thought in the past, a game of criminals! But of course, it is not. It is very smart, very, how do you say, intrigante. I sat and I watched it night after night, for many, many hours. I understood the game, I understood the players, and I understood this is art! I wanted very much Dario Sammartino to win.

BGK: He was very good. I wanted Alex Livingston to win. He seems a very good man. A decent player.

SOS: He is not a, how do you say, tough man. He does not look like this.

BGK: you’re right. But I think that’s why he is special. What did you see in the game that made you think it’s an art?

SOS: Yes, of course. it is a little difficult to explain. You need luck, of course, you need luck in your cards. But luck – you have no control over luck. It is something you have, or you do not have. But it is also a game of how you treat luck. And not only that. It is a game of how you let luck treat you. How you let it influence you. I think that to play poker is to act, to perform, like on a stage, your relationship with luck. I think it is a very deep, profondo, form of acting.

BGK: This is a very beautiful thing to say and to think. I agree with you. I can even say, following what you said, that it’s a performance of the relationship between a man and his fate –

SOS: Or a woman, of course.

BGK: Of course. it’s a performance as profound as a Greek tragedy.

SOS: Well! I think so! I think so too!

BGK: And It makes me think about goalkeeping. Because it can be similar. I need luck, too. I need to gamble when I make the jump. I can read the field players, I can try to predict them, to understand them, I stand in front of them. But at some moments of truth, I also stand before my fate. You see, a penalty shot, it’s like an ‘all in’ for a goalkeeper, but it’s an ‘all in’ I don’t choose to make. This choice is usually made for me.

SOS: I think it is the same in poker sometimes. I think that when Sammartino made an ‘all in’ in the final, it was also not his choice. It was a choice of his despair, a choice of his confusion, a choice of his, yes, a choice of his cards. not the cards he lost with. The cards he played before, do you understand? A choice of all the cards he played.

BGK: I think I understand, yes. I would very much want to ask you to come and see our next match, when we play in Milano. I believe that if you sit and truly watch a football match, you will see the art in it too.

SOS: well, of course. this is very nice of you. Thank you. And maybe I should say the same to you, that you must come and see an opera.

BGK: I would love to see an opera you sing in.

SOS: well! Of course. thank you. Thank you.

BGK: thank you! It was beautiful talking to you. You have beautiful thoughts.

SOS: Well, haha! of course. Thank you.