Andrea Viscomi is a late career footballer, from Rome, captain of the local football team, U.S.Collidoro, in southern Italy. During the imminent period of the 1990s World Cup, he meets Marcello, a boy who dreams of becoming a footballer and lives with his mother of Arbëreshë origin, in the popular neighborhood called "Aranceto". Their lives are intertwined. The friendship with the footballer rekindles in the boy the desire for a father figure that he has never had and in the footballer a forgotten carefree time, which has been lost above all due to his involvement in match-fixing. The coming-of-age novel of Marcello crosses the descending parable of Andrea's career, in the sign of a friendship necessary for both.—2023 © Verso Features