Dear Cipe,

I didn't manage to tell you what I wanted to for fear of making you understand that time was inexorable and the illness terrible.
I am sorry, but I think I should thank you most of all for the patience you have always had with me. For your eyes that smiled, until the end, at the enthusiasm or the irony with which I tried to overcome the difficult times with you.
A few days ago you spoke to me with hardly any voice left - and with the expression of someone who loves you - about Inter, projecting your thoughts towards a future beyond our possibilities, humble, ignorant and human.
A few months ago I asked you, half joking and half serious, why we never managed to have a referee as a friend, so we could feel protected at least once. And you, with an expression that was both soft and severe, replied to me that I couldn't ask you this because you weren't capable.
Fantastic. Your great dignity wasn't capable of it, your natural honesty wasn't capable of it. Neither was the sportsmanship that remained intact since your first day at Inter, with Herrera who mistakenly called you Cipelletti, and since then all of us have called you Cipe. Gentle, intelligent, courageous, reserved, far from every vulgar reaction.
Thank you again for having honoured Inter, and with her, all of us.

Massimo Moratti