‘Anche il calcio dev’essere bello’

‘Anche il calcio dev’essere bello’

It was Sunday afternoon and we were sitting around watching soccer. Actually, we were sitting around watching people watch soccer. “Quelli che il calcio, Those Who Soccer” is one of Italy’s best loved programs and an absolute bore. The real matches are only shown on cable

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Thu 16 Jun 2005 12:00 AM

It was Sunday afternoon and we were sitting around watching soccer. Actually, we were sitting around watching people watch soccer. “Quelli che il calcio, Those Who Soccer” is one of Italy’s best loved programs and an absolute bore. The real matches are only shown on cable television, so my desperate group of friends were forced to watch pseudo celebrities talk about football plays only they could see.

 

During the commercial break the men started talking about the World Cup championships of 2002 as if they’d happened yesterday. Traumatizing due to what Italians call “unfair refereeing,” the last Mondiali remain a sore spot in Italian football. I followed the Championships with all the dedication of a true fan. Don’t get me wrong though; I knew nothing of soccer then, and despite “Quelli che il Calcio,” know nothing of soccer now. My undivided interest in the matches lie solely in my conviction that national soccer tournaments hold the secret to understanding cultural identity in Italy. Watch soccer and you will learn a lot about culture.

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“Italians play with a grace and style that is not seen with the English and French,” my friend Paolo started in on me, “because in Italy, anche il calcio deve essere bello – even soccer must be beautiful.”

“My view of the Italian performers, and let’s call them performers rather than players, is that they wear their hair too long and don’t want to get dirty,” was my biting reply.

Paolo would have none of it. “No. That is not it at all. It’s about the philosophy of a country and its national temperament. Take the Croatians and the Italians, for example. We don’t get along on the field. Croatians play with the violence of their warrior past. We Italians are not aggressive on the field. For us it is a dance, not a war.”

 

“You cannot argue that Italian strategy was not up to par during the Mondiali 2002, even despite biased refs,” I baited, amused to no end at how easily he forgot that my expert words were pure bluff.

 

“That is not my point!” my friend argued. “For example, it is well known that the Italians get along much better with the Mexican national team than with the Europeans. In 2002, all we needed was a tie for both teams to pass into the next round. It was worth nothing to them to win for the sake of winning. A tie permitted both the Italians and the Mexicans to pass forward together. They play like us, so the Mexicans cooperated.”

 

“You mean,” I said, “that no one on either team did a thing with the ball for the last ten minutes of the game, so as to guarantee the advancing position for both teams.”

 

“Esattamente, exactly, and that can only happen with people of Latin blood. We understand the value of favours,” Paolo concluded, infinitely satisfied with his verbal dissertation. “It could have never happened with the Germans.”

 

Watch soccer. It will tell you a lot about historical resentment and modern day political antagonism. It will also tell you what kind of stuff a race is made of. Italians on the field go for grace, beauty, and calculated effort. They are not run-you-down, beat-you-up, leave-your-guts-on-the-field type of players. What goes on between the goalposts, though, is a reflection of what goes on within the peninsula too. Italy is a culture where beauty is a moral virtue and where “diving in the mud,” whatever that mud may be, should be avoided even if it means compromising the game a bit. When I asked Paolo if the way the Italians play could be a metaphor for the way Italians live, he turned poetic. “Soccer, love, politics are all a game. This does not mean they are not serious. A game can be a very serious thing. You play because you believe in the game, but that doesn’t mean you want to die in it.”

 

“Or get dirty?”

 

He smiled. “Death and dirt are bad. Beauty is better.”

 

Ahh…said like an inspired Italian fan on a Sunday afternoon.

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