Did the scandal trigger the Azzurris
La Italia... Italians crowned with glory can now proudly return with heads held high... Its glory for the Italians in the midst of shame. Yes, events were turning out to be such that could have compelled the nation to bow its head with shame. But life always throws its contrasting complexities. While Italian Football was starting to think that 2006 is gonna be the darkest year in its footballing history, suddenly from nowhere the lighting glory arrived and made 2006 a year to be remembered and to be proud of.
While Italian prosecutors and defence lawyers picked through the details of a domestic match-fixing scandal, at the World Cup Italy's players delivered the perfect reminder of why, despite everything, their game is so respected. The technique, the flair, the discipline and the passion of Marcello Lippi's team demonstrated all that is best in Italian football and rightly crowned by their World Cup triumph over France on penalties. Watching the Azurris play for the last one month, made me feel like they are playing to save their face. They had the skills, and of course, the Italians always had the skills. But it was the implementation of those skills that made me think that the outburst of a scandal back home brought the best out of the players.
Italy's success at the World Cup cannot cancel out what has been revealed about the Azzurris of recent years and nor should the scandal take anything away from what the Azzurri achieved in Germany. But now it seems as if both these developments of the recent times is gonna cancel out each other. And the situation is gonna be such that the Italian football lovers would surely try to remember the latter achievement and probably would forget the former shame that resulted from the scandal. It was a great show by the shenanigans at this juncture, because it has done good to the Italians in couple of ways. First, it has crowned them with the World's most prestigious trophy and second, it has given them a shield with which they can quite easily overcome the shame in the domestic setup.
All in all, in one way or the other, it was the scandal that brought the players together for one cause. The cause that was to savage their footballing pride. And truly a cause to show the world that Italians still possess the skills to challenge the best in the world.
While Italian prosecutors and defence lawyers picked through the details of a domestic match-fixing scandal, at the World Cup Italy's players delivered the perfect reminder of why, despite everything, their game is so respected. The technique, the flair, the discipline and the passion of Marcello Lippi's team demonstrated all that is best in Italian football and rightly crowned by their World Cup triumph over France on penalties. Watching the Azurris play for the last one month, made me feel like they are playing to save their face. They had the skills, and of course, the Italians always had the skills. But it was the implementation of those skills that made me think that the outburst of a scandal back home brought the best out of the players.
Italy's success at the World Cup cannot cancel out what has been revealed about the Azzurris of recent years and nor should the scandal take anything away from what the Azzurri achieved in Germany. But now it seems as if both these developments of the recent times is gonna cancel out each other. And the situation is gonna be such that the Italian football lovers would surely try to remember the latter achievement and probably would forget the former shame that resulted from the scandal. It was a great show by the shenanigans at this juncture, because it has done good to the Italians in couple of ways. First, it has crowned them with the World's most prestigious trophy and second, it has given them a shield with which they can quite easily overcome the shame in the domestic setup.
All in all, in one way or the other, it was the scandal that brought the players together for one cause. The cause that was to savage their footballing pride. And truly a cause to show the world that Italians still possess the skills to challenge the best in the world.
posted by Jaison at
3:46 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home