An Italian football coach in Saudi Arabia looks back: I wasn’t allowed to kiss my wife, I wasn’t allowed to wear shorts in public, I wasn’t allowed to drink alcoholic beverages, training had to be interrupted because of the muezzin’s call, and women had to be crowded together in a corner in the stadium.

No, not much can upset him any more. Paolo Tramezzani (51) has already seen too much in his life for that. But not as a footballer. He quickly became a star, played more than 100 Serie A matches, including 34 for Inter Milan. The worst thing that happened to him was that in two years at Tottenham Hotspurs he didn’t make it and only made six matches.

As a coach, however, the Italian ranges from one extreme to the other. The highlight: his last job in Saudi Arabia. Al-Faisaly is the name of the club. Harma is a city. In the middle of the desert. Two hours by car from Riyadh. “It wasn’t easy,” Tramezzani recalls.” For me. Even more so for my family.” Women are still second-class people in Saudi Arabia. Tramezzani mentions examples: “Harma is a city from another era. Which is why it was better that my wife and daughter lived in the modern metropolis of Riyadh.Being separated was not easy per se. And it wasn’t much better when we were together. When I picked Lisa up at the airport, I wasn’t allowed to kiss her because it was against the customs. We had to enter the restaurants through separate entrances. And there was no alcohol. How often we looked at each other and thought: How nice it would be to have a glass of wine now … Sure, there is the black market. But that is high risk.

Lisa also had to endure a lot in the stadium. “I guess women have been tolerated for a few years now. But they are all crammed into one corner. Literally ghettoised. And they are not allowed to leave this sector either.”

But it wasn’t always easy for him either. “It starts with having to wear long trousers and long-sleeved shirts even when it’s over forty degrees. That was infernal!” And then the rules of prayer! “When the muezzin in the mosque called for prayer at half past four or a quarter to six, everything stood still. Even in the middle of the training. All in all, Muslims pray seven times a day.”

As a coach in Saudi Arabia, you have to be extremely flexible. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience that Paolo wouldn’t miss a bit. “Such an experience makes you richer, bigger, you feel better. Without having lived there, you can’t know how completely different the reality is there.

https://www.blick.ch/sport/fussball/superleague/sion-coach-tramezzani-ueber-seine-flucht-aus-saudi-arabien-ich-haette-jedem-anderen-klub-ausser-sion-abgesagt-id16949708.html