Cagliari embraces "Igor. The Romantic Hero of Football." The film, directed by Luca Dal Canto and inspired by striker Igor Protti, the only player alongside Dario Hübner to achieve the top scorer title in Serie A (with Bari), B, and C (with Livorno), is screening at the Notorious Cinemas in Piazza L'Unione Sarda.
The tour – But accompanying him tonight at 8 pm, along with the Livorno-born director, co-writer with Alberto Battocchi and Anita Galvano, will be Cagliari forward and legend Leonardo Pavoletti, a true Livorno native. "The tour was intended for the cities where Igor played," explains Dal Canto. "Then we expanded, choosing locations associated with the passionate, romantic, and distinctive football that defined the years he played, the football that is still experienced today in Cagliari, which would have been perfect for Protti."
The Story – Premiering on March 27 in Bari, where Protti, born in Rimini in 1967, played from 1992 to 1996, leading the club back to Serie A, the film pays homage to a past when football fueled the dreams of adults and children alike. It does so through the story of one of the protagonists of that game, still human, legendary, and moving, Protti, a champion who managed to earn his place in every club he played for. "At the end of 2024, Battocchi, a huge fan like me of Livorno and Igor Protti, and I came up with the idea for the documentary," Dal Canto recalls. "Given that he was an icon for us, top scorer in Serie A with a relegated team, Bari—a unique case in the history of Italian football, one of those you'd pick up as a teenager in Fantasy Football—the fact that he never made it to the national team with those numbers, even while playing for top teams like Lazio and Napoli, was an anomaly." Perhaps even for "the Tsar," as Protti was nicknamed. "After all, it was Sacchi's Italy, whom Igor had coached in Rimini when he was young, even though Protti, very diplomatically, always said that there were great champions at the time, and that making choices wasn't easy for a coach."
The Last Game – Behind Protti's greatness lies the humility of the man. The humility of true sports champions. "When we asked him to participate in the documentary, he was amazed," reveals the Tuscan director, "but he immediately agreed. We filmed it in the spring of last year, returning to all the cities where he had played: walking with Igor through the neighborhoods where everyone praised him like Maradona was incredible." In 1999, Protti—who is now facing another, more difficult challenge, the battle against colon cancer discovered 10 months ago—turned down a billion-dollar salary to return to Livorno, where he hung up his boots 20 years ago, receiving honorary citizenship in 2007, which the Municipality of Bari also bestowed upon him.
The documentary is enriched by the testimonies of coaches and teammates including Walter Mazzarri, Beppe Signori and Giorgio Chiellini.