FOOTBALL: ITALY QUALIFIES FOR WORLD CUP FINALS.
BUT THERE ARE THOSE TALKING NONSENSE!

It seems to be a recurring tradition: suffer right until to the last game to gain qualification. It has become a regular occurence, over the last twenty years or more, that our national team has to play its last cards to get the final points necessary leading it on to football’s greatest show. Italy was not in an impossible group. Given the opponents and the discrepancy between the technical-tactical merits, Trapattoni’s Italy has only done its duty. Undefeated: two draws, the rest all victories. Some doubts remain, more than justifiable given that the squad still has to mesh, in any case. But if it is results that count, the team camp, with qualification now under its belt, should look forward to a good six-months of calm to best prepare for future engagements. Quite logical, fundamental, perhaps right. Yet, the day after that which, in any event, signalled the achievement of a goal, there are already those passing pessimistic judgements. Switch on Italian television on a misty Sunday afternoon and from the RAI channel you will hear Solon’s excessive warning, ready to lecture the defensive Trapattoni, and let out a disconsolate cry of alarm. “This is the worst ever Italian team seen in recent years. Dull and with a limited game. In a word: poor.” Now, if it is better to pass over the identity of the one passing judgement, one cannot fail to note how the most varied techniques are now relied on just to carve out a niche of notoriety. The saying, created ad hoc by another immortal colleague of the journalistic sensation at all costs, comes to mind. “Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that I am talked about.” So we find ourselves discovering, according to someone, that we no longer have a budding and dependable national team with the future in mind, like many experts predict, in the top four at the next World Cup. Does anybody remember Bearzot and Italy’s World Cup champions in ‘82? Frankly they didn’t play too well, getting through the group stage with difficulty and then taking flight towards the title. And Sacchi’s side in 1994? Perhaps even worse, virtually already on the plane home when they were still 1-0 down against Nigeria in the 89th minute in the qualifying rounds. Important lessons, that send a precise signal. Alchemy in football should never be taken lightly. It can upset predictions and results in the space of a few hours, perhaps minutes. A team is made up of individuals who can negatively influence the overall performance. But if a minimum positive variable is introduced into the same group (the obvious example being Paolo Rossi: going from an unattractive player to infallible leading goal-scorer still at the World Cup in Spain), here is how the turning around of expectations can be total. Then a minimum positive result is sufficient to set off an important chain reaction in the human psyche, faith in one’s means which manages to lead hearts beyond the supposed insurmountable obstacle. Yet, for personal reasons, there are still those willing to pass judgement while still taking stock of the situation and without full knowledge of the facts so as to appear opposed, at any cost, or because of an unconscious form of masochism. Italy is an inadequate team? Maybe. However, let’s begin by adding three key players in three areas to the group that gained qualification in Parma, and absent through injury, such as Nesta, Tacchinardi and Vieri. Does Italy play only moderately? This is also possible. But if, until now, Trapattoni has had altogether the various club players at his disposal for only about twenty days, how can it be that the national side already has a defined identity and open to judgement? Is Italy worrying? And so what should they say to other footballing powers like Germany, Brazil, England and Holland? Amongst which, in order, one struggling to reach a play-off against the Ukraine, one for the last available place, one awarded a 94th minute free kick and with it the automatic qualification-miracle, and one (precisely Holland) who instead will watch the World Cup in Japan and South Korea on television! The Euro is arriving, Schengen has opened up the borders. So here is the solution: we send our judicial Sunday Solon to the sick-bed of one of those nations worse off than us. He will have a right to be there and pass judgement, seeking followers and intriguers for the singular defeatist notions. That is, if his English is up to it.