Football (soccer)
Football, as we Europeans righfully call it because we invented
it before the Americans and their football (as you know they
call ours "soccer"), is a very
tactical, geometrical, imaginative, unforeseeable sport. In
Italy it is considered also a game ("gioco del calcio",
"the nicest game on earth" the Italians say). To play it, you
need technical qualities, often inborn, but also a lot of
imagination, and great tactical qualities. You
need to be instinctive but also rational. The Latins, who generally
are the best in the world in this sport, simply love to play and touch the
ball, and privilege class above anything else.
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Football is also a very intriguing and thrilling
game. There are many variables affecting the game, even
before it is played (long debates on who should play,
depending on the technical and human qualities). The result
can change at any time. Infinite situations can happen.
Scoring a goal can be at times very easy, and in other
situations next to impossible. A little episode can change
everything. You can be winning 1-0 and dominating, and
because of unpredictable variables or lack of luck you can find yourself
losing miserably 1-3. Or you can lose 1-0, attack all
the time and hit the bar twice, see your next-to-impossible-to-miss
point saved on the line, and possibly score because of
a miraculous rebound. On the other hand, because scoring a point can be so difficult, you feel in heaven once you do it. |
The quality of football is also not measured by the quantity
of points scored, although this is an important factor.
| Nobody can be sure to win, even when playing with weak teaks. Brazil
in the '96 Olympics in Atlanta lost with Japan 0-1:
the Brazilians missed 10 points that seemed practically done, while the Japanese would not score another
time in a millenium the goal they made in a next to
miraculous sequence of rebounds. In the 2000 Champion
League final in Europe, Bayern Munich was winning 1-0 with
Manchester United. The German team dominated the match,
and hit twice the post. Then in the two extra-time minutes
which the referee conceded, usually a formality in which nothing changes, the Germans lost concentration and the English
scored tying up. The Germans demoralized and in a few
seconds Manchester United scored again winning the final.
As they say, in football in fact "the ball is round": anything can happen, and matches are always
different. |
| Football is also played with very different
styles and cultures, or "schools" as the Italians
call them, around the world, and this generates interest.
For all these reasons it is the most popular sport in
the world. People take it as life: creative, rational
and irrational at the same time...you never know what's
going to happen. Also, if you just begin playing it when
you are a child, you are soaked in life long. It can
become a fever, and that is why supporters are normally
called in Italian "tifosi", literally "typhus
patients" (!). The world cup every four year is practically
a psychodrama for billions around the globe. In many countries
(including Italy) football is practically the... second
official religion (together with motor sports).
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Alvaro Recoba, of Inter-Milan, now of Torino
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The Europeans consider football also a social event generating popular
and poetic memories.
We wrote this to make you understand why people out of the
US (i.e. 96.5% of the world population) love this sport so
much. Americans like games with numbers and situations changing
fast. For the rest of the world it is the plot, the play,
style and class, situations changing in a state-of-the-art
fashion which really matter.
Rome has two important clubs: Roma and Lazio.
Roma has yellow and red shirts (the traditional colours
of Rome, and a she-wolf as symbol - naturally...). Lazio
has light blue shirts and an eagle as symbol. They both
play at the Olympic stadium, the largest Italian stadium
and one of Europe's most renowned. There is an untreatable
rivalry between the fans of the two teams. The most known
and popular Italian teams are though all of Northern Italy:
Juventus (Turin), Milan and Inter (both of Milan). In
fact they have always been successful teams, while the
achievements of Roma and Lazio, although they are old
teams too, are quite recent.
Click the link below for the photos of the celebration for the victory
of Roma in the 2001 Italian championship, and links reporting
the results of the football matches in Italy, with a coverage of the activities, facts, and
of the lastest news.
Visit also the page: Rome 2001 Champion
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