Chilling out at home of no-fuss Juve
THE Turin Olympics closing ceremony showed one face of Italian sport — bright, vibrant, theatrical, a carnival. Several hours earlier, I saw a different face at the Stadio delli Alpi, where Juventus played Lecce. It was what we would call back to basics.
The sun shone as I arrived, but shed no warmth. Fans came wearing thick jackets and gloves. The Stadio delli Alpi, set unremarkably among towers of suburban apartments, was built for the 1990 World Cup, but already has grown shabby.
The ticket window at which I lined up was broken, and looked as if it had been for a long time. The queue was not long, but it was slow. Every fan had to show photo identification, and his or her name was printed on the ticket.
Ticket and ID were checked again by police at the gate, causing more delay. Apparently, these are measures introduced this season to guard against violence.
A sign, in Italian and English, catalogues what cannot be taken into the ground, and concludes … "and any other item that might cause troubles or injury". Lecce did not fall into this category.
There were few ushers, no program sellers, in fact no program.
There was no bar, nor hot takeaway food, just popcorn, chips, soft drink and espresso coffee in paper cups. My seat was in the Curva Sud.
Seat is a generous description. It was a small, hard slab of plastic, bolted to the concrete terrace, moulded, but with no back. The regulars brought their cushions, or sat on newspapers. For me, it was a lesson learned.
There was an electronic scoreboard, but at no point did it show the score, nor scorer, nor a replay. As in the old days in the VFL, if you were not watching, you did not see.
Oddly enough, I didn't mind any of this. To my mind, the game is the entertainment, and no amount of haute cuisine, upholstery or other luxuries will ameliorate defeat, any more than a Spartan environment will take the edge off a win.
From this brief inspection, the clubs in Serie A appear to subscribe to the North Melbourne philosophy: put all your efforts and resources into the players because if they do not perform, all else is hollow and begins to look foolish.
There were other surprises. The pitch was no thing of beauty. Rather, it was a patchwork of grass, scuff marks and mud, and this day caused the players to lose their footing frequently, a la Telstra Dome.
But this is Europe in winter, the temperature rarely reaches double figures, the fields in the nearby countryside are all ploughed black mud and it is probably a considerable feat of turf management that there is any grass at all here.
Stadio delli Alpi holds about 70,000, but this day was barely a third full, although Juventus is the runaway Serie A leader. This, apparently, is usual for all except the biggest games.
Not all of Italian soccer is a Milan derby at the San Siro. Lecce is from the heel of Italy, far away, poor and doubtlessly feeling the chill. Its supporters numbered barely 200, and were held in a type of pen in one corner of the ground, with a tall spiky fence all around.
But they were as unthreatening as their team. Their colours, crimson and yellow, were louder than they were.
The hardcore Juventus supporters were crammed in together in the Curva Sud, and were a show in themselves. It began with the naming of the Juventus team, player by player. In a harsh, clipped voice, the ground announcer called each first name and the crowd responded in the same short, sharp, loud voice with the surname.
The most unexpected effect of this invocation was that in this two-thirds empty stadium, it echoed.
Then the fans embarked on barracking properly, their vocation. Almost without cease, they sang and chanted, accompanied by the beating of at least 10 drums hung from the second level parapet.
Most of the songs — according to the man next to me, who interpreted loosely — were invitations to kiss various parts of their collective anatomies . But one was a hymn to this "temple of the victor".
Their noisemaking was incidental to the ebb and flow of the game, neither rising in tone or volume when "La Juve" attacked, nor falling when it was attacked.
Among them was a kind of leader, with a loud-hailer, whose half-hoarse exhortations gave the performance the air of a political rally. This is a country that likes politics and rallies. Posters around Turin advertised a public appearance the following Sunday by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It is hard to imagine either the posters or the appearance in Australia. Apart from anything else that the Torinese might hold against Berlusconi, for 18 years until 2004, his weekend job was president of AC Milan.
However, to this Australian sensitivity, the most curious characteristic of the Juve crowd was that it was not one, but a federation of supporter groups. Each has its own name — Drughi (fighters), Legio, for two — its own history — some violent — and most impressively of all, its own enormous flag, more like a medieval standard.
These featured lions, dragons and unicorns, came in their own colours, which were all those of the rainbow, but scarcely Juve's famous black and white. Their wielders caused them to swirl constantly and gracefully throughout the match, as pages must have once when knights began to joust.
The crowd around me was more familiar. They watched pessimistically, greeted small mistakes and momentary misunderstandings with universally recognisable gestures of exasperation. The referee was as little loved as officials everywhere. "Give it away, idiot," has the same ring in any language.
The teams entered and the game begun almost immediately, without fanfare or ceremony. Lecce took an unexpected, but deserved lead in the eighth minute. Scorer Gennaro Delvecchio ran to a pitchside television camera and leered into the lens. Part of the act in Italy is that every goal must be distinctively celebrated.
Inevitably, Juve took over the game. A team featuring Emerson, Patrick Viera, Pavel Nedved, Adrian Mutu, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alessandro del Piero and Lilian Thuram will never be denied for long.
If it was, David Trezeguet and Uruguay's Marcelo Zalayeta were on the bench, but were not used this day. A team that can hold so much talent in reserve had to be worth a numb bum for a while.
Juve equalised via an astonishing goal. From a short corner, Mutu drove the ball across the box at speed. Emerson, facing away from goal, caught it with a back heel from 10 metres, guiding it precisely inside the far post.
Robert Kovac scored a second just before half-time with a powerful header. Lecce knew the fate awaiting it this day, and from the sending off of Alfonso Camorani was resigned to it.
The soccer was sublime, but measured. Each attack was regarded as a self-contained act, with no apparent thought given to a second or third effort once it broke down. Only Nedved was energetic throughout. It was not that the others tired, but rather that they were discreet in their efforts, not bothering to run around if all it would do was to bring them back to the same spots.
They know their own game and players, of course, and I was watching with the eye of an enthusiast rather than an expert.
This was opera, they would say, the rest is burlesque. In the best moments, this was patently so. The spectacle was marred by the statutory series of players collapsing as if fatally wounded, writhing and twitching on the ground, then recovering miraculously.
The afternoon grew colder as the sun dipped, and I was glad of thermals. Half-time was long enough only for a stretch and, for some, a bucket of popcorn.
The players resumed the field and the second half began almost while no one was looking. A scoreboard brought news that Inter Milan led by two goals at Udinese, prompting disgusted sighs. Then it showed that AC Milan had scored, provoking more groans. This was Serie A going around the grounds.
The end was as anticlimactic as the start. Juve's win was never in doubt, but its only other goal was a penalty scored by del Piero in the 90th minute.At the final whistle, the singing and chanting finally stopped and the players made their way quickly from the ground, some swapping shirts, but few other pleasantries.
None waved to the crowd, nor did the crowd seem to expect acknowledgement. No victory song was sung, it had not been that sort of match or occasion. Again, this austerity was as it should be; no one was pretending to anyone, least of all themselves, that this was any more than the top team's regulation win over the bottom on a wintry afternoon in Turin.
March 5, 2006
by Greg Baum
The Age
-----------------------------------
I like this nice description!!!
THE Turin Olympics closing ceremony showed one face of Italian sport — bright, vibrant, theatrical, a carnival. Several hours earlier, I saw a different face at the Stadio delli Alpi, where Juventus played Lecce. It was what we would call back to basics.
The sun shone as I arrived, but shed no warmth. Fans came wearing thick jackets and gloves. The Stadio delli Alpi, set unremarkably among towers of suburban apartments, was built for the 1990 World Cup, but already has grown shabby.
The ticket window at which I lined up was broken, and looked as if it had been for a long time. The queue was not long, but it was slow. Every fan had to show photo identification, and his or her name was printed on the ticket.
Ticket and ID were checked again by police at the gate, causing more delay. Apparently, these are measures introduced this season to guard against violence.
A sign, in Italian and English, catalogues what cannot be taken into the ground, and concludes … "and any other item that might cause troubles or injury". Lecce did not fall into this category.
There were few ushers, no program sellers, in fact no program.
There was no bar, nor hot takeaway food, just popcorn, chips, soft drink and espresso coffee in paper cups. My seat was in the Curva Sud.
Seat is a generous description. It was a small, hard slab of plastic, bolted to the concrete terrace, moulded, but with no back. The regulars brought their cushions, or sat on newspapers. For me, it was a lesson learned.
There was an electronic scoreboard, but at no point did it show the score, nor scorer, nor a replay. As in the old days in the VFL, if you were not watching, you did not see.
Oddly enough, I didn't mind any of this. To my mind, the game is the entertainment, and no amount of haute cuisine, upholstery or other luxuries will ameliorate defeat, any more than a Spartan environment will take the edge off a win.
From this brief inspection, the clubs in Serie A appear to subscribe to the North Melbourne philosophy: put all your efforts and resources into the players because if they do not perform, all else is hollow and begins to look foolish.
There were other surprises. The pitch was no thing of beauty. Rather, it was a patchwork of grass, scuff marks and mud, and this day caused the players to lose their footing frequently, a la Telstra Dome.
But this is Europe in winter, the temperature rarely reaches double figures, the fields in the nearby countryside are all ploughed black mud and it is probably a considerable feat of turf management that there is any grass at all here.
Stadio delli Alpi holds about 70,000, but this day was barely a third full, although Juventus is the runaway Serie A leader. This, apparently, is usual for all except the biggest games.
Not all of Italian soccer is a Milan derby at the San Siro. Lecce is from the heel of Italy, far away, poor and doubtlessly feeling the chill. Its supporters numbered barely 200, and were held in a type of pen in one corner of the ground, with a tall spiky fence all around.
But they were as unthreatening as their team. Their colours, crimson and yellow, were louder than they were.
The hardcore Juventus supporters were crammed in together in the Curva Sud, and were a show in themselves. It began with the naming of the Juventus team, player by player. In a harsh, clipped voice, the ground announcer called each first name and the crowd responded in the same short, sharp, loud voice with the surname.
The most unexpected effect of this invocation was that in this two-thirds empty stadium, it echoed.
Then the fans embarked on barracking properly, their vocation. Almost without cease, they sang and chanted, accompanied by the beating of at least 10 drums hung from the second level parapet.
Most of the songs — according to the man next to me, who interpreted loosely — were invitations to kiss various parts of their collective anatomies . But one was a hymn to this "temple of the victor".
Their noisemaking was incidental to the ebb and flow of the game, neither rising in tone or volume when "La Juve" attacked, nor falling when it was attacked.
Among them was a kind of leader, with a loud-hailer, whose half-hoarse exhortations gave the performance the air of a political rally. This is a country that likes politics and rallies. Posters around Turin advertised a public appearance the following Sunday by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It is hard to imagine either the posters or the appearance in Australia. Apart from anything else that the Torinese might hold against Berlusconi, for 18 years until 2004, his weekend job was president of AC Milan.
However, to this Australian sensitivity, the most curious characteristic of the Juve crowd was that it was not one, but a federation of supporter groups. Each has its own name — Drughi (fighters), Legio, for two — its own history — some violent — and most impressively of all, its own enormous flag, more like a medieval standard.
These featured lions, dragons and unicorns, came in their own colours, which were all those of the rainbow, but scarcely Juve's famous black and white. Their wielders caused them to swirl constantly and gracefully throughout the match, as pages must have once when knights began to joust.
The crowd around me was more familiar. They watched pessimistically, greeted small mistakes and momentary misunderstandings with universally recognisable gestures of exasperation. The referee was as little loved as officials everywhere. "Give it away, idiot," has the same ring in any language.
The teams entered and the game begun almost immediately, without fanfare or ceremony. Lecce took an unexpected, but deserved lead in the eighth minute. Scorer Gennaro Delvecchio ran to a pitchside television camera and leered into the lens. Part of the act in Italy is that every goal must be distinctively celebrated.
Inevitably, Juve took over the game. A team featuring Emerson, Patrick Viera, Pavel Nedved, Adrian Mutu, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alessandro del Piero and Lilian Thuram will never be denied for long.
If it was, David Trezeguet and Uruguay's Marcelo Zalayeta were on the bench, but were not used this day. A team that can hold so much talent in reserve had to be worth a numb bum for a while.
Juve equalised via an astonishing goal. From a short corner, Mutu drove the ball across the box at speed. Emerson, facing away from goal, caught it with a back heel from 10 metres, guiding it precisely inside the far post.
Robert Kovac scored a second just before half-time with a powerful header. Lecce knew the fate awaiting it this day, and from the sending off of Alfonso Camorani was resigned to it.
The soccer was sublime, but measured. Each attack was regarded as a self-contained act, with no apparent thought given to a second or third effort once it broke down. Only Nedved was energetic throughout. It was not that the others tired, but rather that they were discreet in their efforts, not bothering to run around if all it would do was to bring them back to the same spots.
They know their own game and players, of course, and I was watching with the eye of an enthusiast rather than an expert.
This was opera, they would say, the rest is burlesque. In the best moments, this was patently so. The spectacle was marred by the statutory series of players collapsing as if fatally wounded, writhing and twitching on the ground, then recovering miraculously.
The afternoon grew colder as the sun dipped, and I was glad of thermals. Half-time was long enough only for a stretch and, for some, a bucket of popcorn.
The players resumed the field and the second half began almost while no one was looking. A scoreboard brought news that Inter Milan led by two goals at Udinese, prompting disgusted sighs. Then it showed that AC Milan had scored, provoking more groans. This was Serie A going around the grounds.
The end was as anticlimactic as the start. Juve's win was never in doubt, but its only other goal was a penalty scored by del Piero in the 90th minute.At the final whistle, the singing and chanting finally stopped and the players made their way quickly from the ground, some swapping shirts, but few other pleasantries.
None waved to the crowd, nor did the crowd seem to expect acknowledgement. No victory song was sung, it had not been that sort of match or occasion. Again, this austerity was as it should be; no one was pretending to anyone, least of all themselves, that this was any more than the top team's regulation win over the bottom on a wintry afternoon in Turin.
March 5, 2006
by Greg Baum
The Age
-----------------------------------
I like this nice description!!!
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