The incredible performance of the Icelandic team at the Euro16 in France has inevitably generated quite a national debate here. Most people have been asking why and how a nation with a population notably smaller than ours should be able to achieve such a feat while our national squad, run by the oldest football association outside the UK, is still moulding away in football oblivion.
The reaction is of course both natural and justified. This is not a sports page, so I will steer away from any technicalities. After all, I am not qualified to attempt any of that. It is obvious that it is all a question of DNA. The mixture of Viking and Scandinavian blood in most Icelanders certainly has a say in all this remarkable superiority they enjoy when compared to other minnow nations; and it is not only in football. Iceland has been featuring prominently at the top of most editions of the European Small Nations Games at which we always seem to be so happy to win a handful of medals to finish at or near the bottom of the list.
People automatically talk about facilities, but that is no longer an excuse. During the past few years different administrations as well as the MFA itself have invested heavily in local and regional facilities. Long gone is the idea of my childhood of having to play football on a rocky surface, in my case at Kalkara, on an abandoned cricket pitch, partly cement, partly lunar, where falling during a game often meant having to play on in Frankenstein-mode.
Many others insist that where we lag far behind the Icelanders is the issue of professional coaches and trainers, particularly in the case of coaches to coach the coaches and trainers to train the trainers. The truth is that over the decades numerous individuals were sent on specialised in-house courses and overseas UEFA and FIFA programmes, but we still have not seen any encouraging signs.
While our national squad has, for several years now, been in the hands of a full-time Italian manager, the Iceland wonders of Euro16 have an assistant manager who is actually a practising dentist by profession. I really cannot equate the extraction of a tooth with extracting such a remarkable result against England, for example. In our case, I honestly sympathize with Pietro Ghedin every time he has to face the media after a match. There has been and there still is so much inconsistency in Malta’s results that makes you wonder whether we are really coming or going. How can the same team, for example, lose 6-1 and 2-1 within just a few days against same-calibre teams like the Czech Republic and Austria?
Perhaps he would have had the prospect of a better success rate by simply opening a pizza place. I have to warn him, though, that there is such an incredible profusion of new Italian restaurants on these islands that it is always a relief to go to an Indian one.
So it has to be the DNA – and not their popular, sky-reaching “Huh” chant – that makes the difference between us and the Icelanders. Yes, they have players playing in some of Europe’s top leagues, but they still hail from a very limited population source that of course has other interests such ice hockey, basketball and athletics. As another aside, I don’t know if Bjork, the great Icelandic musical genius reported to have sold between 20 and 40 million records world-wide and ranked 29th in VH1’s “The 100 Greatest Women in Music”, practises any sport. But she has not bothered to have anything with the Eurovision Song Contest, the pinnacle for every decent Maltese singer. Difference in DNA again. Viking as opposed to Neanderthal?
Back to football, we can always ask Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando or Daniel Cassar Darien or Klaus Vella Bardon to take over from the seemingly cheesed off Ghedin. They are Maltese, they know how to extract a tooth or two, and would, no doubt, be willing to lead us all into a Semitic rendition of the “Huh” chant.
History tells us the Vikings did make it south to Sicily and perhaps had even reached our shores. One per cent of that in our DNA and, hopefully, we’ll be at Euro20 which, incidentally, will be held in 13 cities in 13 different European countries. Except minnows, I guess. Huh.
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The anglophile in us
Almost two hundred years of British colonial rule could hardly avoid leaving a mark on us as a nation. We are more or less an anglophile nation, and I don’t mean just the carnival-red letterboxes and obsolete telephone booths. People of my generation especially were raised within a strictly British culture, so it was inevitable that we should feel more at home with English literature, English authors, English footballers and English artists and politicians (our neighbour’s cat was called “Eden” after the much-maligned Prime Minister who resigned following the Suez debacle in the 50s).
Again back at Kalkara, most of us kids would watch them playing cricket and tennis in areas kept exclusively for British Services personnel, but we were also quite intrigued observing the goings-on at wife-swapping parties inside the more popular drinking oases in the village. So how in hell could anyone not be an anglophile or, at least, a closet anglophile?
Foreign Minister George Vella’s post-Brexit advice the other day left me in no doubt that we have had our DNA tinged with some British blood. But then, that is perhaps why we also cannot compete or compare with the Icelanders who, remember, beat the England team so easily!
On a more serious note, Dr Vella’s counsel not only made good reading but it also offered a wise and sensible approach to Malta’s traditionally close ties with the UK, Brexit or not. However, the British themselves seem to be in such a quandary.
Rarely has Britain seen so much political and constitutional turmoil. They now have a lame-duck prime minister, about to be replaced by a lamer leader who was against Brexit but will now paradoxically lead a Brexit government, and an Opposition in disarray. Meanwhile, the economy is at risk and Britain’s Constitution seems unable to provide clear answers about what happens next.
The fallout from last week’s referendum is brought up a lot of serious questions and concerns about the UK's future. Citizens there are now looking at the bigger constitutional questions immediately being raised by the Brexit vote. For example, there is no effective head of state that can provide a voice of leadership in times of crisis and their unwritten Constitution needs a radical overhaul.
The overwhelming result is: great uncertainty about how to actually manage an exit from the EU, demands for a second referendum, calls for the result to be ignored, and speculation about an early election. There have also been many reports of racist elements in the community that is abusing and attacking anyone they think is foreign, causing considerable anxiety and stress for many. Yet they have no clear leadership and no clarity on how the Constitution should now work.
Brits everywhere, including the growing Republican movement, are raising questions on Brexit, the aftermath, and how Britain should be governed. What should the role of head of state be? When and how should referenda be used? Does the UK need a written constitution? Why not challenge the royals, by making questions about their secrecy and abuse of privilege?
The anglophile in us keeps us concentrated, but more so because one still has to see what the British psyche will come up with regarding travel, holidays and immigration, all of which can have an impact on our minuscule economy. Now all we need is Donald Trump stirring the global pot.