Italy erupts as European champions come home to Rome

Published July 13, 2021
ROME: Italy coach Roberto Mancini (L) and Giorgio Chiellini hold the European Championship trophy as they arrive at the Fiumicino airport on Monday.—AFP
ROME: Italy coach Roberto Mancini (L) and Giorgio Chiellini hold the European Championship trophy as they arrive at the Fiumicino airport on Monday.—AFP

ROME: After 18 months of pandemic hell, Italy revelled in some football heaven on Monday after its national team brought back the European Championship trophy for the first time since 1968 following victory over England in London.

Led by coach Roberto Mancini, the players landed shortly after dawn to the ecstatic cheers of Italians who spent the better part of the night honking horns, setting off fireworks and violating all sorts of coronavirus precautions to celebrate their team’s 3-2 penalty shootout win at Wembley Stadium.

Captain Giorgio Chiellini, his fist pumping the air, and Mancini hoisted the trophy high over their heads as they descended from their Alitalia charter flight at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport. Amid cheers from airport workers, defender Leonardo Spinazzola hopped down the steps on one foot, his other one in a cast after he injured his Achilles tendon earlier in the tournament.

“Grazie Azzurri,” read a banner on the tarmac a sentiment felt across the country after Italy took home its first major trophy since the 2006 World Cup.

The boys in blue chanted “We’re the champions of Europe!” as they piled out of the coach that whisked them from the airport to the hotel in Rome where they were headed for a rest — or to continue the celebrations.

The national team was feted officially by President Sergio Mattarella and Premier Mario Draghi on Monday, joined by tennis player Matteo Berrettini, who had given Italians another reason for pride on Sunday by reaching the Wimbledon singles final. Berrettini lost to Novak Djokovic, but he joined Mattarella at Wembley to watch the Azzurri finish 1-1 after extra-time and then win on penalties.

There was enough joy to go around to even reach the 10th-floor hospital suite of Pope Francis, who, even before the Italian victory, could savour the triumph of the team from his native Argentina, which won the Copa America earlier at the weekend.

“In sharing the joy for the victory of the Argentine national and of the Italian national squads with the persons near to him, His Holiness dwelled on the meaning of sport and its values,” said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, in an update on the pope’s convalescence in Rome following July 4 colon surgery.

Bruni said Francis spoke of that sporting ability to know how to accept any result, even defeat. Quoting Francis, the spokesman added that he said that means in the face of life’s difficulties “you can always put yourself into the game, fighting without surrender, with hope and trust.”

For Italians, the championship was a new beginning for their youthful national team and a country that’s been yearning to return to normality after being hit hard and long by the pandemic.

Italy was the first Western country to be slammed by the coronavirus last year and has registered 127,775 deaths so far, more than any European country bar Britain.

Most of the restrictions aimed at curbing contagion have been lifted and Sunday felt like a liberation in many squares across the country where the football triumph was greeted by an explosion of cheers, blaring car horns and tears.

A cacophony of honking cars, fireworks and singing fans filled the night in Rome as thousands of people took to the streets. As the sun rose on Monday, the noise had died down but not the sentiment.

“You were in front of our eyes. You were in our hearts. The pain of those who have suffered. The hardships of those who have been brought to their knees by the pandemic,” veteran captain Chiellini wrote on Twitter.

The team is known simply as the Azzurri, the colour of the deep blue skies that sit over Italy throughout the summer, uniting the country as much as the shared passion for football.

“Football is not a metaphor of life, or politics, but the national team always ends up resembling the nation it represents. This past month, Mancini’s team has reminded us that being Italian isn’t so bad after all,” Corriere della Sera newspaper said.

Mancini’s men recovered from the shock of conceding the quickest goal ever in a European Championship final to equalise and held their nerve to claim a shootout victory after, sparking scenes of delirium from the players and the small pocket of Italian fans at Wembley and marking a remarkable turnaround after the team failed to even qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Gianluigi Donnarumma, Italy’s imposing goalkeeper, saved twice as three players fluffed penalties for England, extending their poor record in shoot-outs and leaving the hosts waiting for another major trophy after the 1966 World Cup.

“We did well,” Mancini told RAI Sport. “We conceded a goal straight away and struggled, but then we dominated the game. “The lads were wonderful, I don’t know what more to say. It’s important for all the people and all the fans. I hope they’re celebrating [in Italy].”

Donnarumma saved from Jadon Sancho and, decisively, Bukayo Saka after Marcus Rashford hit the post, as Federico Bernardeschi, Leonardo Bonucci and Domenico Berardi all scored for the Italians in the shootout.

Luke Shaw had given England a dream start with a superb goal after two minutes but Italy, who offered almost nothing in response in the first half, gradually took command and deservedly levelled through Bonucci after 67 minutes.

Extra-time finished goalless despite a flurry of substitutions pushing the game into a shootout drama.

England coach Gareth Southgate gambled by sending on late substitutes Rashford and Sancho specifically for their prowess in taking penalties, but both missed.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2021

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