European Championship semi-finals Italy – Spain: the calm before the cheers

Today two football giants meet in the European Championship semi-finals: Italy and Spain. The Italians can hardly wait for their “Squadra Azzurra” to perform. The real star of the team will not be on the pitch.

The Piazza del Popolo the evening before: the two large screens are still black, and few locals and tourists stroll through the public viewing area. If the Italians have their way, then this is the calm before the storm of jubilation. Up to 2000 fans can watch the semi-finals against Spain tonight in downtown Rome.

Alessandro is an 18-year-old high school graduate from Rome, in his eyes you can see anticipation: “We will come here and hopefully celebrate together. What our team has achieved so far is great, it’s just wonderful.”

Forget the dark Covid months

He is ecstatic about the previous EM appearances of the “Squadra Azzurra”. With her fresh, offensive football, she is currently making Italy forget the dark Covid months.

Not only Alessandro’s friend of the same age, Niccolò, is already dreaming of a great triumph: “I expect a lot from this team, of which we are incredibly proud. We hope that we will be able to raise the trophy at the end of the day.”

This is an enthusiasm that pervades all segments of the population and all ages. The 62-year-old Graziano from Latina is strolling across the Piazza del Popolo, also exuding youthful optimism: “I expect great things from this Italian team that they reach the final. We all expect that.”

“Simplicity, happiness and fun in the game”

Three kilometers as the crow flies, near Termini train station, Ivan Zazzaroni is sitting in his office on the sixth floor of the Corriere dello Sport editorial office and smiling.

The editor-in-chief of the renowned sports newspaper says he can understand the Italians’ current enthusiasm for their national team: “It’s a team that is loved so much because it implements what its coach communicates: simplicity, happiness and fun in the game . That resonates with the people. ”

A beloved team

An Italian national team – trained in results football for decades – that suddenly discovered the lightness of being a footballer.

“We haven’t experienced these emotions since 2006, when Italy last won the World Cup,” reports Zazzaroni. But the 2006 team was not loved as much as it was. Back then, the Calciopoli scandal was part of it, the team was made up of players from Juventus Turin shaped. Now the players come from everywhere, from Napoli to Sassuolo. This team is much more democratic. ”

Mancini is the real star

In terms of the quality of the individual players, the Italian team is not necessarily outstanding, explains Zazzaroni. Only goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and midfield director Marco Verratti are top players. With Roberto Mancini, however, Italy has the best national coach in its history.

Mancini is the real star of the team that makes Italy dream: “Let’s hope that it helps to ignite a turbo in the country to start again,” said Zazzaroni. “I don’t want to talk about Italy becoming European champions because it will bring bad luck. But what we have seen so far is so beautiful that we should complete it. Half-done things are not pleasant.”