Italy-Germany, here we go again. There is no football match like the one between the Azzurri and the German panzers that does not arouse in us a personal amarcord that ends up taking us all back to that fabulous June 17th 42 years ago, to the "match of the century" still celebrated today with a plaque at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City. Of it we all remember not only what happened in those 120 memorable minutes, but also where and with whom we were on that magical night in June 1970.
Already at night, because of the time zone and extra time when Gianni Rivera's big plate slipped the 4-3 ball into the German goal defended by Maier it was almost three in the morning. A night more unforgettable than other unforgettable ones. Personally, I was lucky enough to cover the semi-final of the 24 World Cup in the pit of the Dortmund stadium for Il Sole-2006 Ore, the one that won then took us to Berlin for the fourth world championship triumph by beating Zidane's France: a peremptory 2 to 0 made mourn the whites led by Jurgen Klinsmann at their home. I remember the sad faces of the many Herr Mullers on the packed train that after the game took us back to Dusseldorf and Duisburg where Lippi's Azzurri headquarters were. In the archive of good memories related to the clashes between Italy and Germany, the evening in Dortmund also certainly secured a front row seat.
Instead, I was in a residence in Roquebrune, facing the bay of Montecarlo, when Bearzot's Italy on 11 July 1982 scrambled a stunned German team in the final from our superiority. It was the third world title, we equaled Brazil. Stuff you won't believe. On the highway returning to Genoa and Milan there was an endless carousel of cars with tricolor flags. But the memory of the matches of 2006 and of the Spanish Mundial, however large and profound, does not have that total and enthralling emotional intensity of that of the Mexican World Cup, of that night spent in front of a television, a box bordered with briarwood as they were those of the time, in the house of an old high school friend, in an anonymous street in Milan, via Lattuada to be exact, a stone's throw from Porta Romana.
Nando Martellini's voice reached far from the other side of the sunlit world. Black and white images were sometimes grainy, without any technological comfort. The dark leather ball looked like a boulder compared to those of today: it was a different type of football, slower and also a bit boring with constant back passes to the goalkeeper and many crooked shots, even from aces like Riva or Muller, due to the ball weight. Yet it was a match that made us dream for a lifetime. We were different too, certainly we were younger. Which explains a lot about magic and amarcord. Many and all clear memories: waiting for the match that never came because of Mexican time, the incantations so that the "worldwide" broadcast would not go haywire, as had happened in previous matches. I remember the bitter "Unicum" sipped with ice in the interval, spent in suspension between the joy of Boninsegna's advantage and the fear of being overtaken in the second half. On the table in the living room was, in full view, the issue of Playboy dedicated to an explosive Ursula Andress. The naked breast was really an achievement at the time. Griffato was worth even more. On the turntable Jannacci sang Mexico and clouds. Teams back on the field. For the Azzurri there was no longer Mazzola, instead of him, in what was the famous relay of Ferruccio Valcareggi's national team, there was Rivera. A substitution that Mazzola, who had been one of the best on the pitch, hasn't fully digested yet. But that night everything had to happen according to a script written by a destiny that wanted to make that match unique and immortal in the history of football and lifestyle. This was also the case for Karl Schnellinger's goal with time running out, which silenced Italy at the time, forcing us into nightmarish overtime.
But it was precisely those extra 30 minutes, in which everything happened, that made Italy-Germany the mother of all matches. Not even the time to sit back in the armchair that the Germans make fun of our Albertosi with Muller (also a goalkeeper who loved to bet). Was it the end of dreams? Not at all, Tarcisione Burgnich, the wizard Herrera's Inter full-back, scored the goal of his life. And we were even again. Six minutes don't go by and here is Riva unleashing one of his proverbial shots and making it 3-2. Change of field: another 15 heart-pounding minutes. The panzers restart with their heads down spurred on by a heroic Beckenbauer, who remained in the field with a bandage due to a dislocated shoulder, and again Muller, historic striker of the German national team, found the equalizer with a header from Uwe Seeler's cross. Albertosi is displaced but on the trajectory of the ball, stationary on the goal line, is Rivera. Come on jump, and postpone. Not at all. It's the patatrac. Rivera, just like Gianni Brera's abatino, remains planted on the ground between Albertosi's candles and the jubilation and mocking grins of our adversaries. I no longer remember if in the event of a draw, the match would have been replayed or decided with a coin: it doesn't matter, because not even 60 seconds later, having placed the ball in the centre, the Azzurri weave a choral action with the ball ending up on the edge of the German area, where fate had already decided that Rivera was right there, flat out killing Maier. It's the triumph. And for Milan and all of Italy it was the first sleepless night, magical and interminable, with the squares invaded by millions of fans in a blaze of flags and a din of horns and trumpets.
Of that game I keep the edition of the “Giorno” by Italo Pietra where Brera wrote a memorable attack: “I weren't exhausted by the emotion, the too many notes taken and then carried out in frenzy, the statistical sequences and the many folders dictated almost in trance, I candidly swear that I would attack this piece according to the rhythms and hyperbole of an authentic epinicius. Or I would immediately rely on the dithyramb, which is more animated, more abstruse, crazier, therefore more suitable for expressing feelings, athletic gestures, deeds and misdeeds than the semifinal match played at the Azteca by the national teams of Italy and Germany. One day I'll have to try. Real football is part of the epic: the sonority of the classic hexameter is found intact in the Italian novenary, whose accents lend themselves to exalting the running, the jumps, the shots, the flights of the ball according to geometry or labile or constant…”.
It would be nice if the new challenge at the current European Championships also aroused something similar to what we all felt then. But too many things have changed. Starting with Germany itself then still divided in two. Angela Merkel was just 16 years old and living in eastern Germany. Maybe he didn't even see that game at the Azteca. We were coming off a series of shameful football defeats that culminated in our defeat on behalf of North Korea at the 1966 England World Cup. The economic boom was now behind us but we were far from today's economic and financial chaos. We are now at the mercy of the spread and the mood of the markets, with an increasingly confused future. Fatally, the umpteenth clash between Italy and Germany thus becomes the occasion for a rather disconsolate balance sheet on the lost illusions, on the betrayed aspirations and ideals. Like the dreams of victory in that Mexican World Cup of Valcareggi's Azzurri, the heroes against Germany, who, soundly defeated by Pelè's Brazilians, returned home even welcomed by the throwing of tomatoes.
