“I turned to fix the curtain and it saved my life”
Fabio Grosso, currently Sassuolo coach, recalls incident when he was Lyon coach
Last season’s match between Marseille and Lyon at the Vélodrome was marked by the attack by the home fans on the visitors’ bus, which Fabio Grosso was coaching at the time (from 16 September to 30 November 2023).
The 2006 world champion told Italian newspaper La Repubblica how he almost lost his life when he held the position currently held by Paulo Fonseca.
“The fans threw a bottle at our bus just as I turned to fix the window shade. And that might have saved my life, because otherwise the bottle would have hit me in the temple. Instead, it hit me below my left eye and I ended up needing 15 stitches,” Grosso confessed.
“With this, I understood what it means to run the risk of ‘dying on the spot’. It is the story of a moment that marked me, of a situation that took a totally unexpected and dramatic turn,” he said.
As for the after-effects he suffered, in addition to the trauma, Fabio Grosso spoke with humor: “Yesterday they removed three pieces of glass that the French doctors forgot! If I lower my eyelid, you can see the scar, it’s nothing special. But at least I’m still here to talk about it!”
Since then, he has been out of training for six months, and in June 2024 he took charge of Sassuolo , a team that is getting closer and closer to returning to Serie A.
