He tries to appear detached, but he cares a lot about both Cagliari and Bari. Sandro Tovalieri, as a good double ex of the match, makes no predictions: in Bari, in three years, he contributed - among other things - to bringing the Galletti back to Serie A with Materazzi father, Sardinian from Arborea, and Igor Protti. In Cagliari, in the six months that dragged the rossoblù to the play-off against Piacenza in 1997, which went as it went, he scored 14 goals.

After football he returned home: in Ardea, in the province of Rome. Today he is the manager of the youth sector of Falasche Lavinio, a club of excellence in the Anzio area. «In Bari I spent three beautiful, wonderful years, also on an emotional level. Like those six months in Cagliari, in which we made an important journey but fell at the best moment in the play-off».

Cobra, which in Bari, with Protti and Guerrero invented the little train to celebrate goals, doesn't compromise on the outcome of the double challenge: «The playoffs, even more a final, are a sort of lottery. Bari has always been among the first, Cagliari from the arrival of Ranieri onwards, has recovered the enthusiasm and drive of an entire population, taking a great run-up that has made it enter by arrogance in the lot of the strongest teams. Among other things, I don't think that, for the rossoblùs, the efforts of one more game count: if anything, if they really got tired, it was in the semi-final first leg against Parma. Both teams deserved the final. A lot will depend on the result of the first leg, which I expect to be balanced anyway. If it depended on me», Tovalieri says, «both should already be in Serie A».

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