I'm in Belgium this week and I went to my Irish pub to catch the Man U - Roma game. As usual most English fans started talking shit about Italian football. It's basically what they do. They just really hate Italian football. So they were raving about just how good Stevie Gerrard, Carrick, Lampard en Joe Cole and the like were compared to De Rossi, Pirlo, Ambrosini and Gattuso. These were 'real' men.
It's the fact most English fans have lost every concept of reality that bugs me. Of the four English players listed only Gerrard is world class. The other three are okay players. Of the Italians Pirlo, Gattuso and De Rossi are brilliant and they showed it in the last World Cup. Whereas Italians will go and win in Scotland with Scotland still playing to qualify, the English aren't even tough enough to beat an already qualified Croatia at home.
Italians are divers, mafiosi and eat pizza all the time according to most English fans. We can talk a lot about racism in Italy and it's a subject that should not be easily forgotten, but we should not forget racism towards Italy either. Both Germany and England have shown some very poor behaviour towards Italians in recent years. I would not be surprised if the stabbing in Rome last year had to do with the overall lack of class of Manchester fans combined with their blatant racism towards Italians.