Victorian Amateur Football Association: Adrian Del Monte’s 72 day lockdown in Milan
For 72 days Adrian Del Monte has been stuck in his Milan apartment, only getting outside for a total of about eight hours in that time. The Old Ivanhoe forward shares his lockdown experience.
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For years, Old Ivanhoe small forward Adrian Del Monte shook the attentive tags of defenders given a lockdown role.
Now, he’s just starting to emerge from the most significant lockdown in recent world history.
Del Monte, an outstanding short forward, kicked 483 goals in 178 matches after arriving in the Old Ivanhoe senior side via the club’s under-19s.
Extremely dangerous when the ball was at ground level, one club stalwart said, he “could change direction like Maradona and tie defenders in knots as they tried to tackle him, can kick Daicos goals from all angles” as well as being a great kick for goal from a set shot.
Most famously, he kicked eight in the preliminary final and four in the grand final during Old Ivanhoe’s successful Premier C premiership campaign of 2013.
Del Monte is now based in Milan where he works as a sports television presenter, event host and journalist. Most notably he became the first Australian to present for the beIN Sports network at its international headquarters in Qatar.
He commenced his career in the UK with The Guardian, ESPN and Sky Sports and has covered major events including the 2010, 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups and tennis grand slams while interviewing some of the world’s biggest stars including Lionel Messi, Jose Mourinho, Serena Williams, Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Del Piero, Luis Figo and Valentino Rossi.
He was living every young sports journalist’s dream when the dark clouds of the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe.
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Italy was devastated, no more so than Milan and its surrounds which to date have had some 87,000 confirmed cases and just shy of 16,000 deaths.
And Del Monte flew right into the heart of it.
“We’ve had in Milan and Lombardy (the surrounding region) 46 per cent of all the cases in Italy,” he said. “It was scary, we were at the epicentre of Italy. Milan is such a lively place, the home of fashion, and to see that turn on its head very quickly was scary.
“I’d been travelling around Italy in January and there were preventions coming in in the north but my family is in the south and there was nothing happening there.
“I really learnt about it the day I was flying back from Australia. I’d been there for a wedding. And I remember thinking ‘should I stay or should I go?’.”
But he’d worked too hard on getting some projects off the ground and opted to return.
Del Monte said there were a number of factors that had made Milan such a target early in the pandemic.
“It has an ageing population, and there are heavy smokers. I know they aren’t the causes but it’s certainly had an effect,” he said. “And Milan has a large Chinese population and does a lot of business with Wuhan.”
With the pandemic taking hold, restrictions quickly tightened.
“We were in what’s called red zone lockdown,” he said. “Which was, essentially, you were locked in your apartment. That was 72 days and in that time I reckon I only went outside for eight hours in total to go to the supermarket. And that was next door. That’s all we were allowed to do.
“We weren’t allowed to go for a walk because there were people doing the wrong thing.
“It became your reality, you just had to do what you can do to keep positive.
“I spent a lot of time connecting with people that I hadn’t connected with yet and the amount of people I reconnected with was amazing.
“My family in Sicily has always lived very simply and I think we’ve been taking the simple things for granted.”
Del Monte was able to do a few crosses from his apartment to keep his broadcasting work rolling but it has been a challenge to keep his morale up.
He said he didn’t even have a footy on hand to practise his handball drills or bend a few banana kicks from kitchen to bedroom.
“Nah, I’ve got a couple of balloons in the other room, that’s about it,” he said.
“Last year was the first time in my life I didn’t play any senior footy.”
Above all, it’s been a time to re-set.
When the pandemic first swept across Europe, competitive sport was quickly shut down and with it went Del Monte’s employment. Now, with restrictions easing and borders set to re-open, Europe’s playing fields will soon see action again.
“The reality of my work is it’s primarily dependant on live sport,” Del Monte said. “On March 1, I was in Spain covering the El Classico, Barcelona v Real Madrid, probably the biggest game in the world. Just days later, that was it (world sport shut down) there was no work for me.
“For me this has been just another challenge to overcome. I’ve been working hard for 10 years to get where I am.
“Most leagues are 75 per cent to 85 per cent through the season. There’s potentially 100s of millions of euros on the line, with championships and places in Europe (UEFA Champions League). Those that can finish will finish.”
While the gradual lifting of restrictions is starting to give a glimmer of a brighter future, Del Monte said Italy still faced plenty of hard work ahead.”
“Now is the challenge,” he said. “My biggest concern is cultural.
“Italians are very affectionate, very physical. You kiss everyone. I kiss my hairdresser when I get a haircut, I kiss her assistant.
“Now you can’t do that.
“Everyone loves the cafe, the restaurant, and in Italy it goes up another notch.
“Since they’ve relaxed the lockdown, they’ve been out in big numbers. So that behaviour is a little concerning.”
Del Monte can currently be seen on ESPN, SuperSport, FOX Sports Asia and as a host at major sporting events across the globe. For more, visit: adrianodelmonte.com
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