Marking 200 games with the National team is something that not everyone is able to celebrate. Whilst amongst players, Gigi Buffon holds the record for the most appearances with the Azzuri, currently standing at 176, Professor Andrea Ferretti will reach a prestigious milestone of 200 games working alongside the National team at Sunday’s game in Gdansk. Born in Florence in 1951, the current head of the FIGC Medical Group joined the National Team in 1990 after having been the doctor for the Italian National Basketball and Volleyball teams. It was also within the world of volleyball that he enjoyed life as a player, winning the Scudetto in 1975 with Ariccia, a title win that happened again two years later, but this time with him as coach of the Federlazio group: “When president Matarrese and secretary general Petrucci called me, whilst I was a traumatologist, requesting I accompanied Professor Vecchiet on the Italian National team bench for the 1990 World Cup,” he recalls, “I would never have imagined that what should have been a brief and short cameo would be the start of a very long and important experience, that would have such a strong influence all of my professional career.”

The leading professor of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Director of the School of Specialist Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the University ‘La Sapienza’  of Rome, as well as Director of the Department of Emergencies and of the Orthopaedic Operative Unit and Traumatology at the S. Andrea hospital in Rome, Ferretti is the author of over 250 of the most prestigious publications on orthopaedics, traumatology and of scientific presentations on research performed within the sector. “The feeling I had at the start,” he underlines,” and the one I still get today every time I sit on that bench is one of great responsibility. As a surgeon, I’m used to taking on important responsibilities every day, but in my case as a National team medic, it creates an entirely different context, in which one not only treats the athletes and their entourage as patients, but is also relied upon by millions and millions of fans and spectators that follow the results of the Azzuri with passion.”

The decisions for so many surgical interventions are made often to preserve the careers of those champions that formed the history of the National team: “Over the course of 30 years of involvement with the FIGC, of which much came from the bench, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know so many coaches and hundreds of players. From each one I’ve learnt something that enriched my knowledge, and to them I tried to impart some of my traumatology and medical sports knowledge. Of course, having been an athlete at a high level (although in a different discipline) and having suffered from serious injury issues, this has developed my understanding in treating the most serious injuries I’ve dealt with over the course of my years with the National team: I can recall the times dealing with the injuries of Baresi at the 1990 World Cup, the same Baresi and also Baggio in the USA in 1994, Nesta in the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, Materazzi in Hungary in 2007 and the two terrible injuries suffered by Conte and Perugia at the European Championship in 2000. I can’t forget Cannavaro and Barzagli’s calf and knee surgeries that I organised and carried out in Vienna during the European Championships at the wishes of Real Madrid and Wolfsburg. But the cases that seem the most serious are often not; rather, the pitfalls come via the injuries that initially appear to be the mildest, ones that can get worse throughout the course of the match if prolonged, and can require a long time spent in recuperation in order to get back to full physical health. It’s to these ones that we need to pay extra attention, without neglecting anyone in particular

“Another form of help,” he adds, “came to me from my role as a university professor; I am always in constant contact with young people, students and specialists, and it is from them that I always receive new stimulus to improve progress and research. Research has always been my thing, and I haven’t stopped practising it in the National team; I’m always searching to use each opportunity to deepen clinical understanding or to bring about the possibility of international cooperation. Of course, it isn’t easy to consolidate the role as a medic in the National team with the responsibility of helping first and then directing a department of a large University Hospital. If there’s success, overall it’s down to the constant help and support from my family and from my wife in particular, who has always accepted my choices at the cost of undertaking family and life duties and my son’s education. This is something I’ll never finish thanking her for.”

The handing out of thanks did not stop there: “Now, I’m approached 200 games on the sideline, the only FIGC doctor to ever reach this milestone. I feel an obligation to thank all those, who showed their support for me in this role and who have helped me in my work. I think about the presidents and commissioners, coaches, secretaries, physios, fellow doctors I’ve had at my side on this magnificent adventure. As a young doctor and a fan, and a long-time sportsman, I never thought I’d have lived this out.”