«Game strategies? They were often discussed in the tailor's shop during the fitting of the clothes." Former tailor Annibale Piras remembers the champions of Cagliari. For eleven years, between 1967 and 1978, he dressed the big names of island football. He was born in Carbonia in 1942, but after a few years he went to live in Siliqua. Those were hard times, and after finishing his studies in primary school, he began to work. The needle and thread were put in his hands at the age of eleven, in a tailor's shop in Siliqua, where he learned the rudiments of the trade. At 14 he arrived in Cagliari to work in the workshop of a Neapolitan tailor. Here, for six years, he learned all the tricks of the trade and perfected himself, then left for military service.
Clothes and ball
His encounter with the world of football occurred when he finished his military service in a tailor's shop in Via Sonnino, where he resumed his old job. «Among the tailor's clients the names of important Cagliari footballers stood out, including Franco Rizzo, Gigi Riva, Pierluigi Cera, Sergio Gori, Nenè, Ricciotti Greatti and Giuseppe Tomasini», he recalls. After a few years the big opportunity arrives: the owner of the tailoring shop decides to pass the baton to Annibale Piras: «After taking over the business, I expanded the turnover thanks also to the punctuality in the delivery of clothes, the previous owner was very good to find customers, but he was often late with the work – he explains – With the new management I kept the footballers who frequented the tailor's shop as customers. Riva sometimes arrived while my wife Mariella was cooking, but he never stayed for lunch. The Hungarian Géza Boldizsar was the coach of Cagliari's Primavera, and when he arrived, he would jokingly exclaim “Hello shoemaker!”, I would reply “Hello Yugoslavian!” to make him angry, then I offered him a glass of Vernaccia di Solarussa."
