Why We Love Calcio
Calcio is back. You may remember that tagline from the ill fated video released by Serie A near the end of last season, when three Italian clubs had reached the finals of all three European competitions, only for each of them to end up missing out on the trophy in the end. But this time, calcio really is back.
Sandro Tonali, Sergej Milinković-Savić, André Onana, Kim Min-jae, and Rasmus Højlund may not be back themselves, but that shouldn’t matter much. If you love Italian football, it probably isn’t for the international stars anyway. They may have served as the initial attraction, but if you ended up with a calcio addiction, then it must have been for something deeper.
There is something magical about Italian football. No other country has such fascinating stories, such enchanting characters, and such incredible plot-lines. Where else in Europe do they give out a tapiro d’oro (a golden tapir) to whoever has had a bad week? Or where else do they find it funny to give the flop of the season a bidone d’oro (a golden trash can)? Or at least they used to, anyway. And whoever scores the season’s opening goal should look forward to receiving 100 kilograms of honey from Gigi Nardini, a beekeeper by day and Luciano Pavarotti’s stunt double.
In Italy, each person comes with his own tagline and a bag full of anecdotes. Try this game. Claudio Lotito? Still uses flip phones and falls asleep anywhere. Walter Sabatini? Used to spend every waking moment with a cigarette in hand and an espresso in the other. Andrea Pirlo? Owns a vineyard and produces his own wine. Maurizio Zamparini? Called mangia allenatori (head coach eater) for sacking around 40 coaches. Adriano Galliani? His wardrobe is full of exclusively gold ties as a good luck charm.
Rino Gattuso? Used to eat live snails to amuse his teammates. Luciano Spalletti? Lives in a farm where he hangs his crazy football shirts collection off trees. Marco Borriello? Loves partying so much that he retired and moved to Ibiza full time. Massimo Cellino? Guitarist in a rock band. Christian Vieri? Splits his time in Miami between footvolley and Bobo TV.
Whoever wins the title gets celebrated forever, especially if it’s someone outside the traditional big three (Juventus, Inter, and Milan). Look no further than Napoli’s Maradona shrine, courtesy of their two scudetti, Coppa Italia and Uefa Cup victories inspired by his legendary performances. Their third scudetto arrived last May, sparking historic festivities, including replica shirts hung in the streets of the city in Spalletti’s 4-3-3. If you pay a visit to pasticceria Fresco Forno, you could get to purchase a cake of scudetto bomber Victor Osmihen. Even the pizza is made from mozzarella bags with the third scudetto patch on them.
If you try to define Italy’s football identity, you would settle on their tactical nous, flexibility, adaptability, and cunningness. Coverciano, Italy’s legendary coaching university, remains the Harvard of coaching schools. Many influential tactical brains pass through their doors. The most famous false nine in modern history may be Lionel Messi under Pep Guardiola, but Spalletti had pulled that same trick earlier in 2006/07 and Roma’s mesmerizing football that season culminated with Francesco Totti winning the European Golden Shoe as a false nine.
Carlo Ancelotti’s Milan ruled Europe in the mid 2000s with a Christmas tree formation and later a diamond midfield, both of whom he exported to England to play arguably Chelsea’s best football in the Roman Abramovich era, winning a league and cup double in the process. Ancelotti didn’t stop there, taking Real Madrid to Champions League glory twice over two stints, including ending Madrid’s long awaited chase for La Décima on his first attempt.
It was Roberto Mancini who landed Manchester City’s first Premier League title, and it was Claudio Ranieri behind Leicester’s miracle in 2015/16. Even Antonio Conte arrived in England after Chelsea had finished 10th in the Premier League and within months had inspired the majority of the league to switch to a back three on his way to the title.
When England decided to hire their first ever foreign coach, their desired man was Sven-Göran Eriksson who had just won lo scudetto with Lazio and left them as one of Europe’s strongest teams. Eriksson may have been Swedish, but his most glorious days were spent mostly in Serie A with Roma, Sampdoria, and most memorably, Lazio.
The only second foreigner to coach England was an Italian himself, Fabio Capello. He was also, along with Eriksson, the man chosen to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson after his initial planned retirement in 2001. Even today, the most popular head coach in Europe is probably the Italian Roberto De Zerbi.
It’s not only the Italian coaches who are pure box office. Italian club owners are the most entertaining in Europe. Whether they’re pioneering visionaries yet full of scandals like Silvio Berlusconi, obsessed with sacking their coaches like Zamparini, went bankrupt and ended up in jail like Sergio Cragnotti and Calisto Tanzi, or come from the movie business like Aurelio De Laurentiis and Massimo Ferrero, there is no doubt that Italian club owners have a different persona.
Many of them actually support different clubs than the ones they own. Sassuolo’s late owner Giorgio Squinzi used to support Milan, and even had their colors as his mobile cover despite his club giving them memorable beatings over the years. Ferrero, Sampdoria’s previous owner, was actually a Roma supporter, and only bought Sampdoria after failing to purchase the club of his heart. Fiorentina’s Rocco Commisso was a big Juventus fan and a minority shareholder for years, now he rarely speaks in public without throwing shots at i Bianconeri.
Another calcio game you could play is to try and predict which team will financially go bust and have to start over from the bottom of calcio’s pyramid. In this century, Fiorentina, Salernitana, Parma, and Palermo are all examples of clubs that had to reboot due to their dire financial situation and yet made it back to Serie A and B.
In many ways, Italian football always provides hope. Totonero, the betting scandal of the eighties, actually set in motion a chain of events that ended with Berlusconi purchasing AC Milan, forever changing their fate and that of European football in the process. Paolo Rossi, the legendary goalscorer, was one of the players banned in that scandal. Two years later, he was leading Italy to their third World Cup, finishing as the tournament’s top scorer and sealing his place as the nation’s hero.
When Calciopoli broke out just as Italy were preparing for the World Cup 2006, Italy’s squad included 13 out of 23 players from clubs hit by the scandal — five Juventus players, five Milan players, two from Lazio, and one from Fiorentina. Things got even worse as Gianluca Pessotto, former teammate and close friend to many in the squad, was hospitalized after falling off the fourth floor of Juve’s headquarters. These events ended up bonding the group tightly together, as they rallied around and fought back with everything they had. A month later, the World Cup trophy was in Pessotto’s hospital room alongside many of his ex-teammates.
Even Italy’s latest triumph, Euro 2020, wouldn’t have happened without Gianluca Vialli. His presence as a delegation chief for the Azzurri was one of the keys behind their trophy win, with his cancer battle and inspirational speeches the main fuel for Italy’s players during the tournament.
So you could look at calcio selling its best stars year after year, exporting its best coaches, and losing its Italian owners to foreign and less charismatic ones and say it’s no longer the force that it was. You could even point to the old stadiums with running tracks and horrible pitches, or TV deals that are dwarfed by their Premier League and La Liga counterparts, and claim that there is no way back in sight for calcio. But that would be simply missing the point.
Calcio is about hope, redemption, and defying all odds. But it’s also about storytelling, unbelievable anecdotes, and non-stop entertainment. When you follow Italian football nowadays, there is no guarantee that they’ll sign the biggest stars, play the best football, or have the best teams. But that doesn’t matter, because that’s not the reason you follow it anyway.
Exactly!!