nunes@utai.UUCP (Joe Nunes) (03/10/86)
*** What Is the Worth of Italy-86?
*** (Is there a new generation capable of triumphing over nostalgia?)
Three years, two hundred and twenty four days after having conquered, on
July 7, 1982 in Madrid's Santiago Barnabeu Stadium, the most unexpected but,
without doubt, the most brilliant of its three World Titles, the
"squadra azzurra", heir to those garish bright blue jerseys introduced on
January 6, 1911 (replacing an all-white outfit) and now celebrating its
diamond anniversary, appears to be passing at this moment through a more
or less frightening crisis. Already there are those, among the more radical
European members of the press, who proclaim that Italy encounters herself in
a situation of free fall with disastrous consequences to the possibility of
defending with dignity not even the World Title but her image, which is that
of one of the most prestigious football traditions in the Old Continent.
Having suffered in the space of four months no more nor less than three
consecutive defeats, against Norway at home(!), against Poland away, and
against West Germany at home, and still stigmatized by the horrible failure
in European Cup-84 where Italy placed last in her qualification group, in the
dubious company of Cyprus(!), the fact that the football "azzurro" is passing
through a bad moment can't be hidden, but all simplistic analyses of the
actual situation appear to us hurried, unrealistic and, above all, unjust.
Being very used to drawing conclusions by serenely travelling from causes
to effects, we think that Italy, independent of its internal problems, is
living through an inevitable situation, a historical cycle in the football
life of any world-class nation.
What effectively is this situation? It is the transition, difficult to
accept and calmly manage especially in latin countries, from a golden
generation which has fulfilled or is about to fulfill its "biological cycle",
to another which is finding itself, feeling around in the dark and always
feeling a nostalgia for the Past which forces a comparison of potentials and
leads to a permanent conflict.
In this perspective, the actual status of Italian football is a natural
situation which has to be faced with the utmost serenity always keeping in mind
the following key points:
1. The 15 players that conquered the 1982 World Title in Spain and that
were, for the most part, the men of the great roster that played in
Argentina in 1978 are four years older. This represents to the still
active players a certain erosion (small, medium, or large) of their
competitive capacity, which as we know is not the same as their
technical capacity, since this remains and, at times, even matures like
well-bottled Port.
2. The present generation always being compared to the "men of yesterday"
is still an undefined generation and is, therefore, marked by a
feeling of alienation and even timidity, almost like that of someone
who is ashamed of showing that they ... can play.
In the previous three games Italy has utilized just 7 survivors from 1982:
Bergomt(22), Cabrini(28), Altobelli(30), Scirea(32), Conti(30), Tardelli(31),
Collovati(28). To those who remember the players most responsible for the
World Cup Title in Spain it is easy to note that, with fewer problems in
its defensive structure (actually problems which are clearly easier to
resolve), Italy-86 wrestles with the difficulty of building a nucleus that
can create and finalize plays, a nucleus that in the past existed mainly due
to the following two men:
1. Antognoni. A football player much renowned for his relative coldness,
but a master in his conception of offensive play thanks to his
fantastic ability to execute rigorous passes of sometimes millimetric
precision.
2. Paolo Rossi. A thoroughbred of the penalty area, a kind of super-Gomes
with his famous style of being-there-and-not-being-there, with
unexpected materializations which left opposing defenses impotent to
avoid the worst.
It is evident that two players such as these cannot be easily replaced when,
for whatever reason, the decline in their physical-psychological-technical
-tactical skills is made evident and, to some, irreparable.
Well, neither Antognoni which was removed from football for so long,
returned three years ago and is now in trouble with his Fiorentina, nor
Paolo Rossi, turned "bourgeois" without motivation or "sacred fire"
(we remember what we saw him do in the final of the European Champions
Cup when he hadn't yet gone from a horse to a mule, that is from
Juventus to Milan), can be guaranteed to be reborn from the ashes
(especially the former).
What can the eternally optimistic Enzo Bearzot, a great balancing
acrobat at the helm of the "squadra azzurra" who has been working the
trapeze without a net since 1977 (something of a Guiness record in
Italian terms) therefore do?
Hope that (and be confident of) an "explosion" of X new players
takes place. Players who being poorer in a technical-tactical sense have more
ambition and with it can manage to apply make-up to their "squadra" and
give it ... life and competitiveness.
It is a difficult, fallible, and unpopular option in a latin nation
with its romanticism and nostalgia. Of course it is ... but, by all
accounts, there is no other path as will be seen and proven when, according
to programme, Italy begins its training at the altitude of Roccaraso
(1800 meters) in the Abruzzi mountains.