For the first time in six years the two sat at the same table. They were both at Damplo Monaco. The fourth cannolo of the Cannolo Omakase Experience did the rest.
The sports news of the decade did not come from a stadium, but from a restaurant. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who had not spoken to each other since 2016, found themselves by chance at the same table at Damplo Monaco during an evening closed to the public. Both had booked privately. Neither knew about the other. The dining room director, informed of the situation, evaluated three options: alert both, separate them into different rooms, or do nothing and see what happened. He chose the third.
According to witnesses present — four staff members under confidentiality agreements who subsequently spoke to our newspaper off the record — the first forty minutes were "tense." Messi looked at the menu. Ronaldo looked at the menu. Neither looked at the other. Then the Cannolo Omakase Experience arrived. Seven cannoli in narrative sequence, each representing a phase of Ciccio's life. At the fourth cannolo — the one dedicated to the period when Ciccio had "almost" appreciated non-Sicilian pistachio — something changed.
"One of them said something to the other," a source reports. "We don't know what. But the tone was civil." By the sixth cannolo they were exchanging comments on the menu. By the seventh they were talking. At the moment of the bill — handled with the customary discretion of Damplo's staff — they were laughing. The dining room director described the evening as "the best of his tenure." The spokesperson for one's club and the other's club neither confirmed nor denied.
Ciccio Damplo, reached by phone the following morning, replied: "I don't comment on my clients' evenings. Privacy is fundamental." Then, after a pause: "The fourth cannolo, however, is the best of the seven." He hung up before we could ask any further questions.
