On one side we have the red shirts of Spain, attacking with pace, class, brilliance, speed. Spain is a country where winning the league might not be enough to keep your coaching job: just ask Fabio Capello. On the other side the light blue shirts of Italy, defending with barricades, slowing the game down, erecting fortifications in midfield, never giving up. There is only one field where italians are said to be cynical: football.
This is how the British media would see the game: a clash between an ugly defensive team and a classy albeit unlucky one. The contrast is deeper: it is a clash between those who reduce the beauty of football to beautiful football and those who don't. What is commonly referred to as 'beautiful football' is a way of playing the game. It is fast, relies on constant runs of players without the ball, and shuns the long ball. In this Euro, more than Spain or Holland, it is Russia that has shown this type of football, and it is no surprise: beautiful football requires a lot of running and fitness, and it makes sense that players whose league is played in the summer display it. A Cristiano Ronaldo or Henry, after 50 and more intense games in top European leagues, can not find the energy to constantly dance around the ball without actually having it. Beautiful football is composed of short passes, the idea being that the player in possession always has two or three options open, created by a bunch of team-mates making runs. The philosophy of beautiful football is in Cruyff's phrase: "Simple football is the most beautiful, but playing it is the hardest thing".
To reduce the beauty of football to this type of football is generalizing, on the verge of fetishism. The beauty of football is also Greece European champions in 2004, or the punishment that comes from not converting your chances. It is the beauty of unpredictability, the satisfaction of pundits being proven wrong. There is, to come to our game, a particularly Italian way (but the English share it to a great deal, when they are at their best) of making football beautiful without the playstation-like-short-passing-all-out-attack frenzy. It is finding beauty in suffering. Part of it is not having possession for most of the game, great saves, defenders heading the ball out when it is about to cross the goal line, constantly feeling that the opposition might score: in a word, suffering. But just when the defence of the Alamo is taking its toll on fan's hearts, the counter-attack comes, the goal is scored. After that, it is even more suffering: but to win a game in this way is an experience that can not be easily matched.
Winning 4-0 can leave joy, enthusiasm, and a few jokes for the future. Winning after suffering changes you. Time is dilated: ten minute of Spanish pressure will seem a few years tonight. Italy have a long tradition of such games. The most notable ones in recent years, a 2-1 win over Nigeria in 1994, Roberto Baggio with a double, and a win on penalties against Holland in 2000, when Francesco Toldo stopped the Dutch five times from the penalty spot. Those games live on even if the technicalities are forgotten. What was the defending midfielder's role in that Amsterdam Arena game? were the full backs helping in midfield? Was there much wing-play? Who remebers, who cares. What is remembered is Toldo saving from De Boer, Kluivert kicking his penalty against the post, and the waves of Dutch attacks failing to succeed.
Tonight, if you are an Italian fan, expect to suffer.
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