Newsgroup: it.sport.calcio
Titolo: Scusami italia !!!

To Italia, with apologies
The Azzurri defied the odds and silenced the doubters
The Italian players fought the overrated label all tournament long and
ended up breathing life into an otherwise drab World Cup.
The Italian players fought the overrated label all tournament long and
ended up breathing life into an otherwise drab World Cup.
I was wrong, Italia. Wrong to doubt you, wrong to criticize you, wrong
to think that you were overrated, overscandalized and overmatched.
Scusami, Fabrizio. Scusami Michele. Scusami Franco. And, most
important, scusami Paola, "la mia bella Italiana," who is now
thoroughly enjoying making me eat all my pre-Cup Italy-bashing words.
She is particularly fond of the following passage I wrote: "To be
honest ... I think Italy will have trouble advancing from its group."
Nice going, Nostradamus. Now I owe Paola dinner at Nobu. (I might have
to sell my laptop to pay for it, but what the hell -- cute Italians
don't visit me very often.)
But I'd like to say to the Azzurri one more thing: Grazie. Thank you
for showing us that soccer is not about how much individual talent you
possess (see: Brazil), but about how the players interact. And thank
you for giving us something to remember, something even more unexpected
and astounding that Zizou's headbutt.
Up until the semifinals, this had been, for me, a most bland and
unremarkable World Cup. No real Cinderella team, not very much good
soccer, too many cards, too many dives, and ultimately only one
transcendent goal -- Argentine Maxi Rodríguez's volley against Mexico.
FIFA tried to counter the negativity with the glorification of Ghana.
It fit well with the soccer suits' commendable efforts to promote
diversity (even while the referees consistently screwed the African
teams). But I was amazed how many people were "impressed" by the Black
Stars in the Brazil match. They lost 3-nil! What's impressive about a
3-0 loss in the Round of 16? It isn't even a moral victory, when
compared with past Cinderella runs by the likes of Cameroon and South
Korea.
As it turned out, the truly exciting story was the Azzurri. They
arrived in Germany tattooed with more question marks than Puma symbols:
Did they really deserve their seeding during the World Cup draw? Was
Francesco Totti healthy? Were they too inexperienced? Who was going to
score the goals? How would the scandal back home affect their
performance?
There was something about this Italian team that rubbed people the
wrong way in the beginning. Angered by the match-fixing scandal,
irritated by the fact that the Italians' ego, external pundits hoped
the Italians would collapse like vultures waiting for the sick gazelle
to expire.
And the U.S. match seemed to bring their hopes to fruition. The Azzurri
drew 1-1 after enjoying a 10-9 player advantage for most of the second
half. Surely, this was the death knell.
But no, it was more like cardiac resuscitation. The next game, they
beat the Czechs, comfortably, then slipped past Australia in the Round
of 16 (I don't care what anyone says: That was definitely a penalty).
And in the quarters, they strutted to a 3-nil win over Ukraine.
All the ugliness, the kicks when they were down, spurred them on. Their
fans started to believe and they all took strength from everyone else's
negativity, like Dark Side siths or Nietzschean übermen -- growing
stronger from that which did not kill them. Even the apparent suicide
attempt of Gianluca Pessotto, a former teammate to several of the
Italian players, didn't get to them.
They arrived at the semifinals having conceded only one goal. Suddenly,
everyone re-examined them, and what they saw was a thing of beauty: the
quintessential team, a highly tuned machine, a Ferrari, whose parts fit
together perfectly.
The entire team played in Serie A -- the very league was under fire
from magistrates, journalists and FIFA bigwigs -- and they struck a
blow for the value of having national-teamers playing in the same
league. They were familiar with each other -- Gennaro Gattuso and
Andrea Pirlo, from the Milan midfield; Fabio Grosso and Marco
Materazzi, new teammates at Inter; Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluca Zambrotta
and Gianluigi Buffon, from Juventus (at least until Juve is sent down a
few divisions later this week).
On defense, their familiarity impressed most. During the final, I
literally gasped in awe of the Italian defense. It wasn't the
catenaccio of old, but something more fluid, refined, selfless. At one
point, I started laughing, like the first time I saw Michelangelo's
staircase at San Lorenzo in Florence, because sometimes laughter is the
only possible reaction to impossible beauty.
The indisputable leader was Cannavaro, the captain. He played as if
Jupiter had possessed his body, particularly after his former Juventus
teammate Pessotto's suicide attempt. He won everything on the ground,
everything in the air. He was a gladiator, the perfect spiritual
machine -- cold fusion, perpetual motion and a heart the size of Mount
Etna.
Twenty years from now, when I think back to the '06 World Cup, I will
remember the following image first: Cannavaro, standing at midfield
during the penalties, his arms folded, his face as tight and hard as a
statue of Aeneas. His stoicism held during the first four penalties.
Then, when Grosso's kick won the trophy, Cannavaro exploded, with joy,
with relief, with pride. And with a certain amount of "up yours" to all
of us doubters.
And so, all I can say in the end is: Scusami Italia, e grazie mille.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com


Ripeto, in realtà si vuole fare Paola.
-- 
Per quanto possa esser bella la strategia, occasionalmente si dovrebbe 
poter guardare ai risultati.

TANTO NON TE LA DA
-- 
www.mrwolfe.it
 ---> la mia band!!!