What it seems to be
A football match.
What it really is
If there is one thing capable of bringing Italians together, it is the national football team.
Which is surprising, because the rest of the time Italians are extremely good at dividing themselves. Every city has its pride, every region its rivalries, every bell tower the conviction that it is slightly better than the one next door.
Then an ordinary evening arrives.
“Stasera gioca l’Italia.”
For ninety minutes, local rivalries are put on hold. Arguments about North and South, the best city or your club team suddenly become secondary. There is only one shirt.
That is why, when the national team goes through a long period of mediocrity, Italians seem to lose something that goes beyond football.
Of course, in the meantime we fall in love with tennis, volleyball and athletics. We discover sports we barely followed a month earlier and celebrate every Italian champion as a national hero.
But it is a different kind of enthusiasm.
Tennis can give us a champion. Volleyball can give us a world title. Athletics can give us a record.
Only football gives Italians the feeling that, all at once, they are on the same side.
Other sports fill the schedule.
Football fills the void.
Scene
— Hai visto la finale di pallavolo?
— Bellissima.
— E Wimbledon?
— Fantastico.
— Quindi ormai segui tutto?
— No.
— E allora?
— Sto aspettando che torni forte l’Italia.
The key to understanding it
For Italians, football is not simply the national sport. More than anything else, it is the place where they learn to feel like a nation.