Understanding (?) "Football" in Italy
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By Rick Steves
Stepping down a quiet side street in Florence with my friends Roberto and Manfredo, we stop outside a café filled with men crowded around a TV, watching soccer — "football," to the rest of the world. Roberto says, "For Italy in the 1960's, opium was the religion of the masses...Marx got it backward. But today, it is football."
Manfredo agrees, adding, "I read it in the newspaper, a cardinal said, 'Football is the religion of Italy.' Sunday is the only day for the family in Italy. And we spend it around the TV, watching football."
And it's a violent religion. In Italy, the 1970's were a time of political violence — fighting on the streets and in universities. By the 1980's, the political agenda of the '70s had been accomplished and the fighting moved to the stadium. Rather than political assassinations, headlines reported football violence: "Roman fan kills Lazio supporter with flare gun."
Stepping into the plain, unglamorous, smoky room, Roberto whispers, "The press stirs up the violence. You have your Bill Clinton Sexygate. We have Footballgate. We play the game Sunday. Then we talk about it Monday to Saturday. The biggest newspaper in Italy is only for sport...for football."
Manfredo says, "And the biggest-selling edition in history was the day Italy won the World Cup...1982. Yes, football is big in Italy. We have no choice. My father said, 'Support Rome, or you get no food in this house.'"
You cannot stop violence, but you can regulate it. The football team captain is the equivalent of a medieval military leader. European fans don't applaud their opponents' good play. They're the enemy. In the US, sports may be more violent on the field, but not in the seats. In Italy, simply being in the stadium can be dangerous.
Roberto, whose hometown, Siena, is famous for the brutal horse race called the Palio, says, "There are no rules in the Palio. It is the most violent game in Europe...in the most peaceful city in Italy. In Siena, we have no crime...no drugs...just the Palio. People with anger only wait for the day."
Manfredo says, "And peaceful Siena has the most violent stadium in its league."
Roberto admits, "Inside of every Sienese, there is a piece of our republic. We lost our republic but the medieval anger survives. It is in our blood."
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