A Season With Verona

by Tim Parks

  ‘I’ve got a girlfriend,’ Mirko said. It was the fan from Trento whom I’d met way back in November on the train to Turin. As before he was polite and friendly. We were still stuck at Verona train station an hour after our train was due to leave for Milan. Apparently the station in Vicenza had been closed to defuse a massive English bomb from the Second World War, a relic curiously associated with the wine bottle in the boot of my car. As a result, the special train we were due to use wasn’t available, and we would be put on a regular interregionale that would get us to Milan perilously late. ‘Want to drive?’ I aked Mirko. ‘It’s only an hour and half in the car.’ ‘Not for the game with Milan.’ He shook his head. ‘We need police protection.’ I remembered hearing the same story from Aiooogalapagos about Brescia. ‘I’d never go to the Brescia game,’ Aiooo told me. ‘Too dangerous.’ In the event I had found it tame, just the usual business of people hurling themselves against fences, spitting, shouting and tossing a stone or two.

  ‘So you’re happy now?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ Mirko is a pleasant young man, with a strong chin and cautious eyes.

  ‘And she lets you go to away games?’

  ‘She doesn’t like it, but she says: have a nice pilgrimage.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Problem is my mother doesn’t like her.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The girl had some kind of asthmatic condition. She had to use inhalers and so on. Needed medical treatment. Mirko’s mother, who is extremely religious, feels it’s wrong for him to bond with a woman who won’t be a healthy wife and mother. At thirty-one Mirko still lives at home. He travels fifteen miles home from work at lunchtime to eat the pasta she prepares.

  I put it to him that it might be time to tell Mamma that his love life is none of her business.

  ‘I can’t.’ The haunted look in Mirko’s eyes intensified. ‘I can’t do that.’

  Looking over the crowd, drinking, laughing, barracking the surly policemen who always travel with us, I wondered how many among us were basically phobic young men who came to football to demonstrate to themselves that they weren’t entirely without courage, even if they did find it impossible to confront their mothers. I quoted Mirko a song I’d found on a fan website:

  Come farò a spiegare alla mia mamma

  questo occhio nero,

  sono caduto a terra,

  lei mi dice non è vero.

  How can I explain this black eye to mum?

  I fell over, That’s not true, she says, son.

  And these footprints on my arse,

  That was a carabiniere showing his class.

  Mirko laughed. ‘I’ve never been involved in a fight.’ His tone was: how could I ever have imagined that he would be involved in a fight?

  One person who is definitely not phobic is Forza. At quarter past two we finally piled off the train at Milano Centrale, where I enjoyed one of the most rewarding experiences of my footballing year so far. Week after week I creep through this busy station, bound by timetables, weighed down with students’ theses, plagued by train delays, ticket-office queues, overcrowded carriages. And instead here I am suddenly under the huge arch of one of Fascism’s finest architectural achievements, standing in a solid group of Veronese yelling ‘Milan Milan vaffanculo’ and generally intimidating the railway staff and the Japanese tourists. The acoustics are excellent. The boys raised their fists. And in that magical way that happens in crowds, I found myself next to Forza, his big shaven head glowing with pink pleasure. ‘I love the game against Milan,’ he said. ‘I love the feeling of walking into San Siro and all around there are fifty thousand people who hate you. They hate you. They hate you. It’s fantastic.’

  Forza was right. ‘Butei, this isn’t one of our best crowds,’ shouted the chorus leader as the police at last marched us into the stadium plaza. ‘But we must show pride. Banners high now, butei, facciamo bella figura.’ Let’s cut a fine figure!

  Just at this moment, as we engaged in the classic Italian gesture of self-presentation, chanting our chants, holding high our banners, becoming, in short, the icon of ourselves, a solid yellow-blue phalanx, compact and combative, at precisely this marvellous moment, the Milan fans waiting on the higher ramparts of the stadium fired three red rockets into our group. They really do hate us. There was confusion. The police began to yell as if it were our fault. Forza was hit on the nose by one of a shower of coins tossed from the stands above. A deep scratch bled copiously. By the time we had got into the stadium everyone was feeling properly wired-up and as the field of play came into view, it was to see that Hellas, in all-white, were attacking. They had won themselves a corner. I felt great.

  Verona have never beaten Milan at San Siro. Did they have any chance today? Just a couple of weeks ago, in a pre-election speech, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato concluded that, thanks to his government’s performance, ‘Italy is in fact higher in the European league tables than AC Milan is in Serie A.’ The subtext being: if Berlusconi can’t even get his super-expensive team any higher up the championship than that, what chance has he got of running the government successfully?

  Judging by the banner dominating Milan’s curva, the fans are also critical of their president’s achievements. ‘NOT PROMISES FOR THE ELECTORATE,’ they have written in letters more than a metre high, ‘BUT CONCRETE INVESTMENTS FOR CUPS AND CHAMPIONSHIPS.’

  Eliminated from Europe, out of the running for the scudetto, it hasn’t been a good year for AC Milan. After half an hour’s play this afternoon they looked quite incapable of scoring against us. But as I’ve mentioned before, opinion polls suggest that every time Milan win, Berlusconi’s prospects for becoming Prime Minister improve. With the general election only two weeks off, this must be a crucial point of the season for him. So sure enough, fifteen minutes from time the referee broke the deadlock by awarding Bierhoff a dubious penalty. He had charged into the six-yard box with his leg at head height. Dangerous play? Trying to get to the ball first, Ferron knocked him over. Penalty. Goal.

  ‘Di questa partita,’ the brigate began to shout, ‘non ce ne frega un cazzo.’ We don’t give a toss about this game. We never cared. It’s a noble lie. As the chant died away a brilliant pattern of passes put Super-Mike Cossato alone in front of Milan’s goal. Keeper Sebastiano Rossi was on his knees by the far post. All the striker had to do was to drive the ball home. He hit wide. The day ended in dismay. Reggina had beaten Napoli. We’re now second from bottom with only six games to go. Chievo have won again. ‘Hellas, you’re dead,’ gloats a politically correct Chievo fan, writing to our Wall. ‘You and all your racist supporters. Ignorant pigs. Roast in hell!’

  Elections

  Ciao everyone. Verona aren’t in B yet. Support them to the end. Penn, who are you voting for tomorrow? Berlusconi or Rutelli? I’m voting for the Polenta Party. Polenta for everyone.

  Dany

  FOR THOSE WHO have grown out of religion but haven’t yet learned to enslave their minds to something spectacular and harmless like football, political causes have become the only respectable object of those emotions we once associated with the sacred. So a very large number of people are growing extremely heated about the Italian general election, even people who would appear to have nothing to do with them. The Economist tells us very sternly that we mustn’t vote for Berlusconi because he is corrupt. Margaret Thatcher tells us that we must vote for Berlusconi because he is an innovator. More understandably in the fray, Umberto Eco warns that the elections will be a ‘moral referendum’, with the evil and the ignorant voting for Berlusconi and the good and the intelligent voting for Rutelli.

  Of course none of these people imagine that their attachment to their party is that of the fan to the colours. Politics is a respectable subject to grow heated over (far more than sport or religion) precisely because it is presumed to be an area for reasoning and logic. Isn’t that an odd formulation? All the same, the crassness of the arguments offered and the evident emotional engagement of those offeri
ng them makes it clear that we are deep in the realm of fandom here. How can The Economist imagine that the alleged corruption of a candidate is a problem for Italians who regularly vote for politicians under investigation, who daily face situations where to side-step the law seems the only sane form of behaviour, who for decades go on giving all their passions to a campionato that they know is riddled with cheating? The passport scandal is a classic example. Any number of teams have broken the rules but that doesn’t do anything to change our allegiances, or our excitement. There is nothing more galvanising than the thrill of disgust. And how can an intelligent man like Umberto Eco imagine that, with the majority of Italians saying they will support Berlusconi, his last-minute cry of moral referendum will be seen as anything but an indirect insult to those whose opinions he doesn’t share. ‘Ignoranti,’ the Veronese shout at more or less any opposing group of fans who come to the Bentegodi. We have no desire to enlighten them.

  Anyhow, within the messy goal-mouth scramble that the last days of the election campaign have become, it’s a real pleasure to find someone who has kept his mind absolutely focused. Checking up one morning on a favourite fan website – tifonet.it/rovereto – I found the familiar homepage revolutionised. On one side was the symbol of Berlusconi’s party, the Italian tricolour with the FORZA ITALIA logo. Oh dear, I thought, another man who has to tell us how he’s voting. But no! That logo now says FORZA HELLAS! Similarly, on the other side of the screen, the symbol of the extreme-left party, Rifondazione comunista, has been altered to PARTITO SCALIGERO – RIFONDAZIONE. To complete the montage, the hammer and sickle at the centre of the symbol have been replaced with the ladder, emblem of the Scaligeri. Both powerful images have been appropriated to our cause. Meantime, the banner running left to right across the top of the screen announces (and I can almost hear the fans chanting): Di queste elezioni, non ce ne frega un cazzo … We don’t give a toss.

  Good. But then what do we give a toss about? Sunday’s game against Fiorentina of course. ‘Every game is a last-ditch now,’ says Perotti. ‘Every match must be played like a Champions’ League final.’ Wondering what the coach was doing to prepare the team for this level of tension, I go to check out the team in training the day before the match. The players are standing in a circle passing the ball around while two in the middle have to dash back and forth to intercept it. Laursen plunges this way and that. He has the energy and awkwardness of a young horse. Apolloni is laughing, joking. Leo Colucci intercepts a ball with his hands and pretends he hasn’t. What me? Despite the team’s precarious position, they are having a great time. Why not? The players are not going to die when we go down. Football is a sport. They are healthy young men on a spring morning. Never have I felt so strongly the gap between the hopes and fears of the supporters and the pleasures of the players’ routine.

  Then the deputy mayor arrives. Luca Bajona is a member of Alleanza Nazionale, the party to the right of Berlusconi which commentators so eagerly refer to as neo-Fascist, just as Rifondazione comunista, to the left of the present government, is eagerly referred to as neo-Stalinist. How the media hankers after the conflicts of the 1930s. How Bajona yearns for the excitement of the curva. He used to stand together with the brigate. ‘Now I have to watch the games from the stands above the halfway line. A question of institutional image,’ he explains sadly. He’s disgusted with the team. He’s disgusted with the attempts of the international press to discredit Berlusconi. As the ball goes back and forth among the players, our conversation bounces quite naturally from politics to football and back. Rutelli is a puppet figure, there to be manipulated by others if he wins, discarded if he loses. Berlusconi, on the other hand, is his own man. Of course Verona are going down, he says. Of course Berlusconi will win the election. Then he adds: still, if we beat Fiorentina, you never know.

  My son forgets that he’d said he wouldn’t watch the last few games. We take our seats beside Pietro. The stadium is distressingly empty. Only the curva is crowded. The day is hot and humid and, as the players come out, I am suddenly aware that since I started following the team away, facing the uncomfortable journeys, joining in the shouts in stations and subways, being ill-treated by police and stadium officials, the home games are losing their excitement for me. The experience isn’t strong enough. I would like at least to be standing in the heart of the curva, not stuck out here above the corner flag with my polite friends of old. However much I love them.

  Let’s be brief about this game, and the one that followed it, against Lecce. Of the match with Fiorentina, let’s take just three images, two of the game, one of the stadium as the final whistle blew. The first is the sight of Nuno Gomes, gathering the ball on the break. He’s clearly offside, but the linesman doesn’t raise his flag. The curva explodes with anger, then falls silent. Doardo – for Ferron is suspended – runs to the edge of the box to meet him. What chance does our incompetent reserve keeper have? None. The Portuguese striker passes him with enviable ease. He looks up at the empty goal and strokes the ball right at the middle. But he hasn’t noticed Massimo Oddo. Hated by the fans, booed and whistled and grunted at, Oddo has sprinted fifty yards to connect with the ball just as it should surely have gone in the net. It’s a moment of redemption. In Doardo’s favour it has to be said that at least he didn’t pull Gomes down as I suspect Ferron would.

  But it’s the second picture that will never fade in my mind, that will still be etched there when Nuno Gomes and Oddo have long been forgotten. We’re fifteen minutes from time. Verona have snatched a goal from a corner, but are struggling as Fiorentina fight to equalise. In desperate defence Vincenzo Italiano is involved in a collision. He goes off. He stays off for a couple of minutes. We all know he has a serious knee problem. It’s kept him out half the season. Is he going to be substituted? No, he’s standing by the touch-line, a slim Sicilian of medium height, eager earnest face, arm raised to catch the referee’s attention. Eventually the referee turns and waves him on. Unpromisingly, he hobbles on to the pitch. As he does so, there’s a loose pass in Fiorentina’s midfield. Italiano lifts his head. He begins to run, to race. Quite alone, he intercepts the ball just before the halfway line. All the Florence players are pushing forward; there is nobody behind. Injury forgotten, Italiano is sprinting madly now, twenty yards to pick up the ball, and now thirty in a mad gallop towards the enemy goal and the Curva Sud where everyone is on their feet. ‘Run!’ they’re screaming. ‘Run!’ Italiano is not known for his speed. There are two defenders beside him. He’s five metres outside the box. One more second and they will slide the ball from him. Italiano strikes it on the run. The trajectory is high but dipping. He’s hit it hard. The excellent Toldo, Italy’s national keeper, leaps, gets a hand to it, but can only push it against the post and in. Two–nil. The whole incident has lasted about twenty seconds. It’s a dream goal, a Roy of the Rovers goal. Italiano, sent off for exulting against Inter, goes crazy. He waves to the curva, does a dance, returns to the bench to hug the doctor who took the decision to send him back on the pitch. As soon as the game resumes, he collapses. His knee has given way. He’s substituted.

  Two minutes from time Fiorentina pulled one back. The fourth man gave an incredible six minutes’ injury time. Unheard-of. But still it wasn’t enough. Verona held on. Exactly as the final whistle blew, the darkening sky exploded in the most violent of thunderstorms. The players celebrated under sheets of rain to the applause of the gods. It was a moment to remember.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘You bet you,’ Italiano told me a couple of weeks later, after the Lecce game. He’s a straightforward boy in his early twenties. Verona bought him when he was just seventeen and he’s at home in the city now. In the bar he’s brought me to, he knows all the staff and half the customers. ‘Never felt any anti-southern feeling here,’ he says sincerely. The only thing that worries him is when he’s out of the team for a while, or when we lose badly, as against Reggina. ‘People stop me in the street and say, why are you playing so badly, what
’s wrong with you. That pisses me off.’

  ‘Talk me through the game with Lecce.’

  ‘What can I say?’ He’s drinking a fruit juice. ‘After beating Fiorentina, we had to win to pull them down into the relegation zone. They only needed a draw to stay clear of trouble. We attacked for ninety minutes in scorching heat. They played catenaccio.’ He pauses. ‘When I think of their goal, when I see that ball going in the net, I get the shivers, honestly.’

  That was 12 May. It was election weekend and the games had been moved forward to Saturday. The vote was on Sunday. That morning an editorial in the paper announced: ‘Everybody knew that these elections would be played more with the studs than the ball.’ In the Bentegodi – for we had the rare luxury of two home games in a row – the few brave souls who’d made the long trip from Lecce arranged three long banners one above the other:

  THE STADIUM IS AN ARENA

  OUT WITH THE PLAYERS

  IN WITH THE GLADIATORS

  ‘It was so hot,’ Italiano said, shaking his head, sipping his orange juice. ‘Really punishing. I can’t understand the criticism in the press. I don’t think they understand football. We went at it tooth and nail. I don’t think we could have done any more.’

  ‘In that kind of sun it’s exhausting just sitting in stands.’

  ‘So we take the game to them for almost ninety minutes and then that goal with their first shot.’

  Five minutes from the end, Lecce pushed forward and shot at random through a crowded box from thirty yards. The ball struck Laursen and deflected into the net.

  ‘I thought I would die.’

  ‘But then the linesman gave offside. Frankly, I think he felt sorry for us. He took pity. There was nothing wrong with the goal. He just couldn’t believe how unlucky we were.’