On May 31 st , the fourth workshop of a series about Italian culture was organised by Galileo Galilei Italian Institute with the support of School of International Education of Chongqing University, being titled: “The Italian Football: more than just a passion”.

The workshop was dedicated to Italian football, well known and renowned all over the world for its famous players and teams. The activity started with a short introduction about the origins and then introduced the teams, managers and players which morehave influenced football in Italy, as well as all around the globe.

The event, divided into two different parts, firstly saw a workshop highlighting the main features of Italian football. Michele Salvemini (an Italian student of Chongqing University) talked about the most important teams in Italian football history, such as the AC Milan with all its great players, like Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Kakà, Andrij Shevchenko and Paolo Maldini, Juventus FC with Alessandro Del Piero, Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Gianluigi Buffon, and Inter FC with Josè Mourinho, Ronaldo, Javier Zanetti and Diego Milito.

While presenting teams and players, we went through the records of Italian Serie A Championship and the evolution that made Italian football become high-level and globally well-know as it is today.

To follow, an interview with Gino Salica, former President of AC Fiorentina – which is one of the major Italian club – who shared his experience of being President and on how to manage an important football club. Mr Salica received as a gift the t-shirt of the Chinese national football team with the number 8, a lucky number in China.

In the second part of the event, the Chinese team and the International team of Chongqing University confronted in a friendly match, ending with an ceremony awarding the players.