The triple in reverse: The final lost by the Italians

Catching the hangover of three European defeats against Roma (Europa League), Fiorentina (Conference League) and Inter (Champions League), also to end the sluggish rhetoric of “Italian football in crisis” (with three European finalists?!?!). avoid An analysis would be desirable that someone will be resurrected with certainty. Of course, all three Italian teams did Lost excessively, mostly playing “well”. and often have more chances than their opponents (5 shots on target against 3 for Roma, 6 against 4 for Inter, 4 all between Fiorentina and West Ham).

There Rome Loses on penalties after an even game, plays more against a referee, to say the least, inconsistently and after having the clearest offensive opportunities. There Florentine suffers the decisive setback in the 89th minute after an entertaining and balanced game. L’Inter He ‘only’ loses 1-0 and it’s those few inches and Ederson’s various saves that keep the demigod City from bleeding to death just when he’s about to score the saddest treble in history.

And it is in these pseudo merits of the Italians who should understand the reasons for their triple defeat.

If the British once accused us of interpreting Football not as a sport but as a game (so where every mischief and every forbidden shot has citizenship), now the friends of Albion might change their minds. To put it bluntly, the fox Mourinhos Roma applauds and will be applauded after the game under the Seville curve (something that hasn’t happened in living memory). Fiorentina’s more moderate Italian coach limited himself to acknowledging that his boys played well and were ruined by the end of the game; then he, master of euphemisms, realizes that indeed “we could have done better. In a final, the adrenaline could be handled differently“.

On the other hand, the Italian couldn’t endure Salaams against the winning opponent like his colleague Mourinho a few days earlier: The very sporty English fans even spent the first half throwing glasses and lighters at the viola players, even men have limits. The most surprising case is perhaps the Nerazzurri: a few hundred despite the defeat in Istanbul Inter fans (especially very young, as can be seen from the pictures) they celebrate Etsi City not daretur in Piazza Duomo with choirs and fireworks.

One can bet that despite the truth of the field, the summery climate and the euphoria at the end of the year contributed to the childlike and festive atmosphere on Saturday night. But DAZN and other newspapers are quick to explain the unexpected celebration in the Piazza Duomo as a kind of sublime thanks to Inzaghi’s team; a nice cheer beyond the results. It will be: But are we really not only satisfied now, but are we even celebrating a defeat? Even if you are Inter?

Well, football, you know, is still a trifle, or at most the most important of the least important things. However, it would be a shame if the rhetoric of beautiful defeat (related to the rhetoric of the beautiful death?) was transformed into new ideologyThis undermines one of the few things that football teaches and attracts in playing and watching, much like great literature: a notion of fate to be reckoned with. Whether you play well or badly, win or lose in the ninetieth game (or after a penalty shootout) of a final; Tertium non datur.

When the game ends there is only one winner; The losing party, the commentators’ analysis, may suggest that the losers are the real winners, or the “moral winners.” These are the forms of legitimate revisionismidentical to that of fan fiction which, for example, describes the end of pathetic to save Jean Valjean from his end. But in pathetic by Victor Hugo Jean Valjean eventually dies and will die forever with every reading.

Roma, Fiorentina and Inter lost their 2023 finals forever.

The insistence on this triple and objective inferiority of Italian sides, however conditional, would also serve to reignite anger and malice (competitive, of course) for seasons to come: Disguise defeats as victories may transform soon narcotic poison. And finally, it is precisely the malice that the three Italian teams have almost completely lacked so far: more dangerous, more incisive, more surprising than their opponents, but less cynical and determined. Aware, perhaps unconscious, that when Roma, Fiorentina and Inter returned home they would find someone to greet them with applause and commentators cheering for their extraordinary performances.

In an Italy without cups and without the World Cup for too long, one would hope that on the next round of the merry-go-round the reassuring sporting paraculism would be juxtaposed with the cheerful motto of a Beppe Viola, who, poking fun at the masters of football etiquette, replied: “She will to be sporty!”. It wouldn’t be so negative if we rediscovered exactly this Italian garra charrua that is what the poetic genius of the Neapolitans called crappya virtue that is not exactly sporty-elegant, but that Such happiness brought us a rabid hunger and gigantic, to the point of excessive dominance (always competitive, of course).

It is not a matter of tactics, play or anti-play: here we limit ourselves to one take, its relative advantages and the opposing tendencies to produce medals for all participants; The latter are symptoms of a new ideology that falsely (and against their interests) falls on the backs of the vanquished. Of the virtue of the vanquished The propaganda is full two partisans this country; If those cup finals made us in minorchange music?