
Every italian people remember Bearzot’s victory of the world foootball championship , the players, and the olimpic winners (such as Sara simeoni e Pietro Mennea), but there’s a team disappeared from memory of people.
From 1976 to 1980, italian national tennis team is on the top of the world, four Davis’s cup finals and one victory (the only one in our history) in ’76 with Panatta, Bertolucci, Barazzutti e Zugarelli and Pietrangeli as team official.
But unfortunately this historic victory payng the “blaming” of a final in Cile, during the terror of Pinochet.
For this reason Fandango, under the direction of Domenico Procacci, created this docufilm (for cinema) and a docu-series (for Sky) to tell the greatness of those athletes.
With some interviews to Corrado Barazzutti (the introvert), Paolo Bertolucci, (the plesurable) Adriano Panatta ( the roman viveur), , e Tonino Zugarelli (the proletarian from Roma’s suburbs), the film becames like a tipical Italian comedy (like Totò e Peppino) and explains the great political and cultural battle, waged and win by Nicola Pietrangeli for playng this match in Chile.
FANDANGO
presents
ADRIANO PANATTA CORRADO BARAZZUTTI PAOLO BERTOLUCCI
ANTONIO ZUGARELLI NICOLA PIETRANGELI
UNA SQUADRA – A TEAM
by
DOMENICO PROCACCI
written by
DOMENICO PROCACCI, SANDRO VERONESI,
LUCIO BIANCATELLI, GIOGIÒ FRANCHINI
with the consultancy of MARIO GIOBBE and LUCA REA
produced by DOMENICO PROCACCI and LAURA PAOLUCCI
produced for SKY by ROBERTO PISONI, DINO VANNINI and GAIA PASETTO
executive producers ELEONORA SAVI and IVAN FIORINI
a production
FANDANGO, SKY, LUCE CINECITTÀ
a distribution
LUCE CINECITTÀ and FANDANGO DISTRIBUTION
with the patronage of CONI
Una Squadra , trad. A Team, from 1976 to 1980 Italy is the team to beat. We are talking about tennis and the trophy being fought for is the Davis Cup. The team is made up of four players, four champions: Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci, Adriano Panatta, Tonino Zugarelli.
In those five years they reached the final four times, winning only in 1976 against Chile. The finals reached but then lost were in 1977 against Australia, in 1979 against the USA and in 1980 against Czechoslovakia. In 1976 and 1977, the team had a legend of Italian tennis, Nicola Pietrangeli, who had retired from competitive activity only a few years before, as non-player captain. Pietrangeli was exonerated by his players after the 1977 defeat in Australia. He considers it the biggest betrayal he suffered in his life.
The docuseries tells the story of a team that is sometimes divided, fragmented, with difficult and conflicting relationships, both among the players and with those who guide and train them. A team, a national team, that at the moment when it has victory within its grasp is opposed and fought against in its own country. And despite all this, in those years the strongest team in the world.
The Sky Original docuseries will air on Sky Documentaries from 14 May at 9.15pm, also available on demand and streaming on NOW. The first two episodes of A Team will also be aired on Sky Sport Uno on Sunday 15 May, immediately after the final of the Internazionali d’Italia.
Una Squadra | Al cinema – The preview recounts some of the funniest and most exciting episodes of the series. In particular, it focuses on one of the four finals, the one played in 1976 against Pinochet’s Chile and for this reason at the centre of a fierce political battle. A victory, which even today, 122 years after the birth of the Davis Cup, remains the only Italian victory.
Una Squadra will premiere in cinemas on 2, 3 and 4 May.
“We enthusiastically embraced Fandango’s project of “Una squadra”, intervening as co-producers, with the beautiful images of the Archivio Luce, and co-distributing the film in cinemas.
“Una squadra’ tells a piece of Italian history at the end of the 1970s, a great sporting story but also full of intense humanity. A story in which the words and deeds, the quarrels and reconciliations, the complicities and the different but complementary talents of the four great protagonists of the Dream Team are interwoven with archive material, on and off the tennis court.
Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci and Tonino Zugarelli, captained by Nicola Pietrangeli, made the history of Italian and world tennis, reaching four Davis Cup finals in five years.
We are certain that “Una squadra”, masterfully directed by Domenico Procacci, who also wrote the screenplay together with Sandro Veronesi, Lucio Biancatelli and Giogiò Franchini, will thrill viewers with its account of the extraordinary events of our recent past, when we were the team to beat, even in the midst of protests over our participation in the ’76 final in Pinochet’s Chile”.
Chiara Sbarigia, President of Cinecittà
“A Team is a simple and brilliant idea. When Domenico Procacci first told us about it, he immediately convinced us to co-produce it. The result is even better than expected, it is a splendid story in six episodes, directed, written and edited with great skill, passion and irony, which contains everything: the celebration of a complicated but unique success, the epic of sport, political history, Italian and international customs of the twentieth century and five amazing protagonists, with very different characters on and off the field, but all irresistible”.
Roberto Pisoni, Director Sky Entertainment Channels
Translated with Translator

Angelo Sonnino, was born in Rome in 1969, and despite a degree in economics with 107 and authorizing the accountant never used doctor, continues in his DJ career, singer and entertainer.