They say that history repeats itself.
Well, this time it did in some aspects and it did not in others.
Italy were crowned world champions following a breathtaking penalty shootout against France, after the 90 minutes and later the 120 minutes finished in a 1-1 draw.
The part of history that repeated itself was, for example, the fact that Italy won the 1982 World Cup when the four semi-finalists were European. It happened this year too.
Twenty-four years ago, Italy had beaten Poland in the semi-finals, and the Pope that time was Polish, Pope John Paul II. This time, they beat Germany in the last four, and the Pope is German, Pope Benedict XVI. The Italians, people who really believe is such coincidences, believed that it was their turn again.
Italy reached the final every 12 years, a series that started off in Mexico when they had lost 4-1 in Brazil, continued in 1982 when they beat Germany 3-1 and then went on to lose in 1994 against Brazil, in another penalty shoot-out. Yesterday they completed the sequence with a win over France, another European team.
When they had won in 1982, Italy had just emerged from a football scandal, and they are facing similar circumstances now in another “calciopoli” the result of which will be made known some time this week.
Germany had won the competition hosted by Italy in 1990, and now Italy “reversed” the result by lifting the FIFA trophy in Germany.
This is where the repetition of history ends and the non-repetition starts.
For one thing, Italy are not known to be good penalty-takers. In three of the last four World Cups they were eliminated in penalty shoot-outs, in 1990 at home by Argentina, in 1994 as said earlier by Brazil and four years later by none other than France. Italy yesterday took “revenge” of this by beating the French.
Yesterday’s victory was also a “payback” for what happened in 2000, when Italy seemed on the brink of winning the European championships when they conceded a last minute goal that threw the game in extra-time, with David Trezeguet scoring what was then the winning golden goal.
The revenge is complete considering that the only player to have missed the penalty yesterday – and therefore handed the Italians their victory – was the same Trezeguet.
Italy had also not beaten France in the World Cup finals since 1978 as, apart from the 1998 match, they had been eliminated by the French in the 1986 finals.
It is time for celebration for the Azzurri, and we have no doubt that all over Italy there was a big party to pay tribute to the 23 players and technical staff, in particular coach Marcello Lippi, who lifted Italy on top of the world for the fourth time in history. Italy are now second only to Brazil, who have won the World Cup five times. Even here, in Malta, partying by “Italian” supporters went on for most of the night.
Italy started the competition as underdogs and few were those who thought they would have made it. Other teams such as Brazil and Argentina, and to a lesser extent Germany and France, were bigger favourites.
But it seems that the scandal that as said earlier has hit Italy’s football scene over the past weeks served as a boost to the players, who united together in one common front and expressed some of the most exciting football all throughout the competition.
In some instances they were helped by luck, such as the last minute penalty scored by Francesco Totti in the match against Australia and the one-two against Germany in the dying minutes of extra-time in the semi-final against Germany.
But it is said that luck favours the brave, and Italy were brave enough through the whole tournament to beat the odds and move through one phase to another to finally gain the deserved prize last night.