Last November, fans worldwide of Italy’s soccer team booed, cried and yelled at screens, staring at what was deemed a sports apocalypse. For the first time in 60 years, the Italians didn’t qualify for the World Cup competition that begins on June 14 in Russia.
There was sadness in the country where the traditions for the sport run deep, and even greater frustration as people tried to make sense of what had happened to the soccer team that has won the competition four times. Painfully, the Italians were disqualified by Sweden, a country with less of a tradition in soccer, and in their backyard on the San Siro stadium in Milan. ” National shame“, ” a total failure“, ” the worst scenario came true” were among the phrases the Italian media used at the time.
After spending months trying to make sense of their team’s disqualification and searching for scapegoats, Italians now have to face the reality of watching the upcoming games without cheering for the “Azzurri.” We asked one of the many fans of Italy’s team about his plans during the World Cup and how are Italians coping with the loss. Fabrizio de Rosa lives in Turin, has a podcast on soccer and food and says June for Italy is now pretty much the worst month of the year.
[ READ: World Sees Italy as the Most Culturally Influential Country.]
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Aren’t you even a bit excited for the World Cup, being a soccer fan?
I don’t think we are excited at all about the World Cup in Italy. We miss the World Cup atmosphere , as the country completely changes during those days. There was no guarantee that Italy would have been in the finals , but Italy is one of the most successful teams in the World Cup. We won four titles. Germany won four titles, Brazil won four titles , too. We played five or six finals. We equaled Germany and we are just below Brazil. We were so used to Italy’s participation in the World Cup to last for a month or at least three weeks. This is bad for the whole country.
Were you expecting the possibility of Italy not qualifying?
No. It was surprising. After Italy won the World Cup in 2006 celebrations were crazy, even in Canada where there is a huge Italian community. But afterwards Italians followed the national team less, which is a paradox. Now we expected to be in the World Cup even if the team was not in its best shape , since we lost a generation of big players. We don’t have the best players now, but Italy still won in top leagues in the world. So for us it is really strange to not be in the World Cup.
There were a lot of talk about the coach, Giampiero Ventura, not doing a good job
Giampiero Ventura is one of the oldest coaches in Italian A Series. He has coached mainly medium-sized clubs. There was no big discussion on him because they said he was used to making the best out of any situation. And the thing is that Ventura didn’t do that poorly , because he qualified second after Spain. After that there were some questions on whether we should change [the] coach. There were doubts on how Italy would perform against Sweden. However Sweden is a much worse team compared to Italy. They [have] won zero World Cups. Maybe they occasionally have one club in Champions League every year. So there was no comparison between the teams.
What were Italians saying about the Sweden game?
It was crazy. You could see clearly at that time that the coach had no grasp on how to put the players on the pitch. At the end of the day, he just expressed a very defensive style of playing, which is also classic in the Italian tradition, but at least when we express it, we don’t get goals (scored against us). He got one goal (scored against Italy), he didn’t score any. The stadium in Milan was completely full. There were 70,000 people supporting Italy and we didn’t score once. What is funny is that the only (other) time we didn’t qualify for the World Cup in more than half a century was when the World Cup was held in Sweden in 1958. This time we got out because of Sweden.
What about the media and sports analysts?
They were trying to understand if the coach was immediately quitting. I was criticizing the coach before the game because he wasn’t fit for the job; he didn’t win any trophies in his career. But nobody from the media was criticizing Ventura (probably) because he was part of the media landscape. He’s been around so long, he had many journalist friends, and nobody really wanted to criticize a man who finally after so many years of coaching small clubs had the chance to actually coach the Italian soccer team. Then after we lost (the first leg to Sweden) everybody was just against him and all the journalists had rumors to share. Some of the oldest players started disagreeing with Ventura, too. But he (seemed) more interested in getting fired so he could get a bit more money. This was the feeling in the country, that Ventura didn’t want to quit. And this was the Italian feeling, that the people in charge never really quit even though they do a poor job.
Has this loss affected Italians in general?
There is a feeling in Italy that we are living in decline. And this was also reflected in the way we play soccer. People would always try to draw comparisons between how we play soccer and how the country’s doing. In reality, in 2006 (when) we won the World Cup, people were happy and politicians were talking about the renaissance of Italy, but then that never really came. Actually, we had the (financial) crisis in 2008.
What will it be like in Italy during this year’s World Cup?
The World Cup is a chance for Italians to (support) the national team, a way to get together and talk about something at work, in bars. Italians get together and they just feel they belong to one country and one community. So (the fact that we are not in the World Cup) undermines the sense of belonging to this community. I am afraid that people are going to be much more nervous this month, while the World Cup could have given them something to think about.
I think this will also hit businesses because they had special offers for the World Cup. Not just the small owners, but the big commercial centers, too. They made new products and (developed) marketing campaigns saying, “You get a TV and you don’t pay for it if Italy wins the World Cup,” or something like that. I think it’s everywhere in Europe but Italy is a really big market.
How have your plans changed?
It was a really bad shock because my girlfriend is Russian and for me it was a great experience to go to Russia for the World Cup. We wanted to experience both Russian and soccer culture and we realized we couldn’t go. I thought, “OK, my trip to Russia is over, at least this June.”
Will you watch the games when Sweden plays?
Ha! I don’t hold anything against Sweden. If I were a supporter (of Sweden) I would be happy because they made history. But historically we are not lucky with soccer and Sweden. In 2004 during the Euro Cup we were disqualified because of Sweden and Denmark tying one last game. So I’m not going to watch any games with Sweden, for sure. I’m cheering for Russia this year.
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