A recent video showed Impact president Joey Saputo at an Impact training session at Olympic Stadium, talking to Nacho Piatti on the field. The shot ended with a hand gesture akin to a signature, which became a topic of discussion and speculation.
The truth is, Saputo simply wanted Piatti to sign a jersey for his most famous fan.
Pope Francis, who was born in Argentina, is a supporter of club San Lorenzo, where Piatti won a Copa Libertadores just before he signed with the Impact. Piatti obliged and signed a Montreal Impact jersey before Saputo flew to Italy with his wife and parents, to turn a dream into reality: meeting the Pope.
A Bologna FC board member who works with the Vatican facilitated the encounter between club president Saputo and the Pope. While Francis doesn’t hold private audiences anymore, he does take a few minutes, after the Wednesday mass, to meet worshippers sitting by the stage, near the altar.
“There were about 25 of us in that first row,” an emotional Joey Saputo told Impact Media. “Actually, the person sitting next to me was actor Antonio Banderas, which was really funny. The media in Bologna found out about the meeting because they reported that Banderas was at the Pope’s mass – ‘Oh, and by the way, Joey Saputo, president of Bologna, was there, too!’”
As the Pope walked off stage and ever closer to them, the Saputos got more and more nervous. For Joey Saputo, the Piatti jersey acted as an icebreaker.
“When I spoke to the Pope, I explained to him that I have a team in Canada, that one of my players is a big player that played for San Lorenzo, Ignacio Piatti, and that I wanted to offer him a signed Piatti jersey,” Saputo said. “The Pope took it, which was really great. He was attentive and he was really listening. When I said San Lorenzo, I saw the smile on his face and he took my arm. It was unbelievable.”
Joey’s wife Carmie, for her part, spoke with emotion to the Pope about their family and children. Just like her husband, she felt the Pope very much entrenched into the conversation, however short it may have been – a minute, 90 seconds at most.
“Everything stopped,” Saputo said. “We were talking, and it seemed like we spoke for an eternity, because he was so focused and so fixated on what we were saying. It was extraordinary. I don’t know what other word to use. He made you feel like you were the only person there, although nearly 100,000 people had gathered in St. Peter’s Square.”
