Football isn't just the most popular sport in Italy. It's also a great popular novel, with its heroes, winners, losers, intrigues, betrayals, and hidden plots. Let's face it: we're passionate about the matches, but even more so about the transfer market , the behind-the-scenes details that accompany every deal. Another thing to say: football is a world that takes itself incredibly seriously, and its protagonists rarely indulge in confessions or conversations that go beyond the usual pronouncements. Too much fear of creating a scorched earth atmosphere, of being excluded from the circles that matter. Too much fear of ending up in the crosshairs of the fans.
For this reason, the book They Called Us Jackals (Baldini+Castoldi, 2025, pp. 368, also available as an ebook) appears to be a breath of fresh air in the stilted communication that accompanies the football universe. The author, Carlo Pallavicino , tells us about his long career as an agent in the jungle of the Italian transfer market .
Let's start by saying something fundamental: Pallavicino is an exceptional witness. He has been involved in the world of football since his high school years, collaborating with various newspapers such as La Repubblica, Tuttosport, and Il Sole 24 Ore. In 1987, together with Giovanni Branchini, he founded the first international agency of football agents, becoming the youngest Italian agent . He worked in this field for thirty years, assisting, among others, Rui Costa, Pandev, Borgonovo, Cristiano Zanetti, Pioli, Marchisio, and Lucarelli. In 1994, he initiated and developed contacts for the European agency of the phenomenon Ronaldo. He then founded calciomercato.com, Italy's leading football news website. In 2023, he definitively left the world of football after forty-six years of activity as a journalist and agent, and has now decided to share with us a part—we believe, however, minimal—of what he saw and experienced.
Carlo Pallavicino recalls firsthand and with a disenchanted tone his incredible journey in the world of football, from a boy captivated by the Totocalcio (Football Pools) scoreboard to becoming one of Italy's most renowned agents. A loving journey through his visceral passion for football (and especially for Fiorentina), from stadiums to hotel lounges and legendary encounters, from Careca to Donadoni, to Ronaldo, all the way to the endless waits to meet Luciano Moggi or Claudio Lotito. Along the way, his connections with players and coaches, some lasting a lifetime, others ending in "betrayal" or even a sudden "stab in the back."
With an ironic style, Pallavicino paints a portrait of a sport that has been poetry, childhood, and belonging, while also casting a lucid and disenchanted eye on the profession of the agent: an often misunderstood figure, caught between the romanticism of player loyalty and the ruthless laws of the transfer market. In short, Pallavicino's book finally reveals the behind-the-scenes story of the transfer market, but it is also a coming-of-age story, a private diary, and a declaration of love for the kind of football that, despite everything—amid greed and betrayal—still excites.