Junior Cally and Bagnulo: “This sport is a happy place”
“Fine partido, in the chiringuito, suona la pala come Paquito”. Hands up who, this week between the Allianz Cloud and Instagram stories, has not heard or sung this refrain. Padel has become a song, ‘Isla Padel’, written both by rapper Junior Cally and Sky Sport commentator – of football but also of padel, ça va sans dire – Gianluigi Bagnulo. Junior, born Antonio Signore, will sing it live on Sunday, between the women’s and men’s finals, and it is likely that he is not the only one to do so: ‘Isla Padel’, here, everyone already knows it. But it’s worth telling how it got from padel to ‘Isla Padel’, from Coello to ‘in the casa de padél stai attento ad Arturito’ or from Tapia to ‘E chi lo marca il Mozart di Catamarca. E quando arriva alta, Augustin la spacca’. Or from Stupaczuk to ‘Stupafacente’. “We met a few years ago, obviously on the padel courts – says Bagnulo –. This year I was on holiday in Ibiza and I wrote to Junior: ‘Why don’t we do a song about padel?’ He immediately said yes, even though he is used to making a different kind of music. We got excited: we did it all in one day”.
Junior, already planning the Spanish version, said yes: “A song had to be done, but it had to be done well. When Gianluigi wrote me, someone who has the skills to realise if something ‘cool’ is coming, it all came naturally. Usually, in my traditional rap, the ideas come to me during the day, I go to the studio, look for the sound with the producer and then I write”. This time, of course, it took a little more work to rhyme the padel show. The title, however, has another matrix: “We called it Isla Padel because padel is a happy island – Gianluigi continues –. And it’s a bit like Ibiza: many people say ‘I’ll never go there’, then they go and have fun. It’s the same with padel: there is a lot of prejudice about trying, but whoever starts playing then has fun”.
The bigs are all in the lyrics, “but the refrain had to be representative, with one player”. And, of course, the choice fell on Navarro, one who when he celebrates – precisely – plays the shovel. Paquito received the jersey with the phrase ‘Isla Padel’ and had already heard the song on Tuesday night on the day of his debut. It is said, however, that some players heard the song for the first time directly from the Allianz Cloud speakers and immediately tried to understand what that sound was. “Navarro is the player who best combines padel and music”, confirms Junior. “I think he is the most musical, most spectacular player, but also the evolution of the sport on a technical and popular level. An icon”.
Junior Cally fell in love with padel during a bad period of this life: “In 2020, after Sanremo, in the 90 minutes on the ‘track’ I wasn’t thinking about the things I was living. I went on court and think about nothing, so the hour and a half became seven. And, now, a sports centre in Viale Monza (in Milan, ed.), with Diletta Leotta, Max Giusti, Gabriele Corsi and Alessandro Borghese. We will have doubles and singles courts and a bistro with Chef Borghese, which we will open in 2024”. The year when padel, with a unique circuit and a unique ranking, will become even more the ‘Isla del Tesoro’.