Italy, Italy, See You in the Autumn
[Last updated: 10.07.2006 14:49]
Thoughts of Italy swirl around the air and, after last night's homemade
mushroom, artichoke and olive pizzas ⎯ yum-yum, thanks Enrica! ⎯
through my stomach. We watched the World Cup final with our friends Rod
and Anna, while Carlotta and Rod and Anna's daughter Meg made the most
of their unobserved freedom and our adjoining playroom/guest room
upside down. We didn't notice a thing until the match was over, after
which it took more than an hour to clear up the debris. Carlotta and
Meg would have had a lot less time to run havoc if the game hadn't gone
to penalties. Damn those penalties.
In a numbing and not altogether pleasant kind of way, I was pleased that Italy won. Italy were superior for forty-five minutes and were also unlucky to concede the opening penalty, when the French winger collapsed in the area after the slightest of brushes. Anyone for "crumple football", the new collapse-like-in-a-heap-at-the-hint-of-a-possible-brush sport, screened with increasing regularity on our TV sets over the last month? But against all expectations, France dominated the rest of the match, even after Zidane, a hero for anyone who enjoys cultivated football, received a red card. At that point, the final turned irreversibly sour and by the end of the match there was a sense of anti-climax veering into a deadening disappointment.
Italy have almost lost as many times on penalties as the utterly useless English and were due to notch up a victory in this manner. The Italians also played just one poor game in the entire month (against the United States) and lit up the tournament with their sensational, vibrant victory against the Germans ⎯ the most spellbinding football match I can remember. The verve and energy of that shimmering match reminded me that, like the dance floor, football is capable of producing moments of collective transcendence. It's just too bad that for those supporters who watch games wearing an English football cap ⎯ and it's been a while since I've been able to count myself amongst that number ⎯ they have to wax optimistic about a bunch of over-paid, under-skilled egomaniac footballers whose inability to play as a team confirmed the view that the most moneyed and media saturated league in the world is also the least likely to produce the kind of selfless team ethos that is essential to winning the World Cup.
All of the commentators I've read and heard are agreed that the Italian team deserved to win the tournament, even if they are equally agreed that the Italians weren't the best team on the pitch last night. Brazil were poor, Spain didn't have a strong enough defence, Germany lacked subtlety and France only played well in a couple of games ⎯ including the final. Argentina were the outstanding team of the tournament, but for some reason the Argentine manager made the fatal mistake of trying to protect a narrow lead against the Germans and never managed to regain the initiative once the Germans equalised. As for the English, they played hideous football against terribly weak teams, and at the end of every game had the nerve to tell us us (a) it was the victory and not the style of victory that counted, and (b) they would start to play good football when it mattered. They were wrong on both counts.
My own strange relationship to international football came into surprising clarity during this tournament. With the first half-an-hour of England's opening match against Paraguay, I realised that I could only get behind an England team that played constructive football (and didn't rely wholly on Beckham's tedious set-piece play). Within ten minutes of the Trinidad match, I was screaming for Trinidad. For the first forty-five minutes against Sweden, England looked like half a team in the making, but the second half cast that theory into the dustbin and I ended up being devastated that Sweden didn't win. In the Ecuador game, I simply stopped watching because neither team was worthy of support. And against Portugal, a deficient opening sixty minutes was hardly overcome by England's backs-to-the-wall performance after Rooney stamped on an opponent. Even though the Portuguese would have been better suited to an Olympic Diving contest than the World Cup, I ended up cheering for them in the shoot-out because I simply couldn't bear the thought of seeing Erickson's smug, utterly clueless face if England, so manifestly undeserving, had reached the semi-finals.
By the knockout stage, it had become clear that the Argentina-Germany-Italy section of the draw was producing the most thrilling, dynamic football of the tournament, but by the second half of the final, Italy seemed to be a spent force. It's a mystery why they couldn't reproduce their sensational semi-final heroics against France across 120 minutes, and by the end of the game it was impossible to feel they deserved to win the World Cup ⎯ at least not on that game alone. But I can't be a fair-weather international supporter, switching my preferences from game to game, and on the balance of the tournament, Italy deserved to come out victorious.
The victory was made sweeter by the scandal that is sweeping Italian football at home, in which four of the country's leading clubs are facing demotion and fines for attempting to influence the appointment of referees in Serie A games, as well as the decisions of these referees in key games. It's hard to feel sorry for players who on average earn
In a numbing and not altogether pleasant kind of way, I was pleased that Italy won. Italy were superior for forty-five minutes and were also unlucky to concede the opening penalty, when the French winger collapsed in the area after the slightest of brushes. Anyone for "crumple football", the new collapse-like-in-a-heap-at-the-hint-of-a-possible-brush sport, screened with increasing regularity on our TV sets over the last month? But against all expectations, France dominated the rest of the match, even after Zidane, a hero for anyone who enjoys cultivated football, received a red card. At that point, the final turned irreversibly sour and by the end of the match there was a sense of anti-climax veering into a deadening disappointment.
Italy have almost lost as many times on penalties as the utterly useless English and were due to notch up a victory in this manner. The Italians also played just one poor game in the entire month (against the United States) and lit up the tournament with their sensational, vibrant victory against the Germans ⎯ the most spellbinding football match I can remember. The verve and energy of that shimmering match reminded me that, like the dance floor, football is capable of producing moments of collective transcendence. It's just too bad that for those supporters who watch games wearing an English football cap ⎯ and it's been a while since I've been able to count myself amongst that number ⎯ they have to wax optimistic about a bunch of over-paid, under-skilled egomaniac footballers whose inability to play as a team confirmed the view that the most moneyed and media saturated league in the world is also the least likely to produce the kind of selfless team ethos that is essential to winning the World Cup.
All of the commentators I've read and heard are agreed that the Italian team deserved to win the tournament, even if they are equally agreed that the Italians weren't the best team on the pitch last night. Brazil were poor, Spain didn't have a strong enough defence, Germany lacked subtlety and France only played well in a couple of games ⎯ including the final. Argentina were the outstanding team of the tournament, but for some reason the Argentine manager made the fatal mistake of trying to protect a narrow lead against the Germans and never managed to regain the initiative once the Germans equalised. As for the English, they played hideous football against terribly weak teams, and at the end of every game had the nerve to tell us us (a) it was the victory and not the style of victory that counted, and (b) they would start to play good football when it mattered. They were wrong on both counts.
My own strange relationship to international football came into surprising clarity during this tournament. With the first half-an-hour of England's opening match against Paraguay, I realised that I could only get behind an England team that played constructive football (and didn't rely wholly on Beckham's tedious set-piece play). Within ten minutes of the Trinidad match, I was screaming for Trinidad. For the first forty-five minutes against Sweden, England looked like half a team in the making, but the second half cast that theory into the dustbin and I ended up being devastated that Sweden didn't win. In the Ecuador game, I simply stopped watching because neither team was worthy of support. And against Portugal, a deficient opening sixty minutes was hardly overcome by England's backs-to-the-wall performance after Rooney stamped on an opponent. Even though the Portuguese would have been better suited to an Olympic Diving contest than the World Cup, I ended up cheering for them in the shoot-out because I simply couldn't bear the thought of seeing Erickson's smug, utterly clueless face if England, so manifestly undeserving, had reached the semi-finals.
By the knockout stage, it had become clear that the Argentina-Germany-Italy section of the draw was producing the most thrilling, dynamic football of the tournament, but by the second half of the final, Italy seemed to be a spent force. It's a mystery why they couldn't reproduce their sensational semi-final heroics against France across 120 minutes, and by the end of the game it was impossible to feel they deserved to win the World Cup ⎯ at least not on that game alone. But I can't be a fair-weather international supporter, switching my preferences from game to game, and on the balance of the tournament, Italy deserved to come out victorious.
The victory was made sweeter by the scandal that is sweeping Italian football at home, in which four of the country's leading clubs are facing demotion and fines for attempting to influence the appointment of referees in Serie A games, as well as the decisions of these referees in key games. It's hard to feel sorry for players who on average earn