Visitors or those who are recently settled on the island may find the scenes which will no doubt ensue in Malta later tonight as somewhat bemusing, and even a bit bizarre.
Everybody and their dog (or other house pet) knows by now that England and Italy will face-off in the Euro 2020 final tonight. It is a hugely important match: England’s first opportunity to win a major tournament since 1966 and the final piece of Italy’s redemption arc since failing to qualify for the last World Cup.
However, it’s also a meeting which isn’t a representation of any major historic rivalry. Unless you live in Malta, that is.
While England prefer to reserve their footballing scorn for Germany, or even Scotland, and Italy hold a general distaste for France in particular, in Malta; this is the veritable clash of the footballing titans.
In the run-up to Sunday’s final, The Malta Independent on Sunday takes a deep dive into what this rivalry looks like, where it comes from, and what it means today.
Identifying Malta’s football-mad population
It’s difficult to quantify how widespread this rivalry is in Malta. Raw data is extremely rare, but a MaltaToday survey done during Euro 2016 did shed some statistical light on it.
The survey found that 78.9% of the respondents supported either Italy or England. Italy got the larger share of the vote (44.2% of all respondents) while England got a somewhat smaller, but still substantial share, of the vote (34.7%).
In discerning the reasons for the existence of such a rivalry, we must first look at the actual football side of the matter.
Malta is no doubt a football-mad country: but like some other smaller countries, support at a domestic level is sometimes left a bit wanting. The same cannot be said however for the support of international teams.
Taking the two most well-known examples from either side of the Anglo-Italian proverbial fence: the Juventus Club DOC Cuore Bianconero fan club, based in Marsa, are acknowledged as being the biggest Juventus fan club outside of Italy, while the Manchester United Supporters’ Club is the oldest such supporters club on the planet, and can boast a Facebook page which has over 2 million likes.
Both these little bits of information are proof of the sheer fanaticism over football that exists in Malta, and they don’t even include the smaller – but still significant – portion of the footballing population who support clubs such as Liverpool, Milan, and Inter Milan.
It is widely accepted that a supporter of an Italian domestic team would go on to support the Italian national team in a major tournament, and that people who support English domestic teams will then go on to support England in the same major tournament.
That’s not a hard and fast rule, and there are no real statistics to back it up, but anything to the contrary of the above patterns is very much the exception.
It’s clear – Malta truly is football-mad. But the rivalry which we are talking about is not one which has simply found its root according to which club the supporter follows. It’s so much more than that, and has its going back decades into the annals of Maltese history.
Malta’s defining Italian-English conflict… no, it’s not football
Malta’s defining English-Italian conflict is not, as some may think, its footballing rivalry, but rather it is linguistic history.
Malta’s bi-lingualism has existed for centuries; but it was not up until the 20th century that Maltese was truly considered to be on par with whatever the second language being used was.
This is due to the fact that Maltese existed primarily as a spoken language for a long time, with whatever colonial ruler Malta had favouring its own language as the island’s official communication method.
This was the case for the Knights of St. John, who ultimately adopted what was known as Tuscan Italian, which progressively replaced the use of Sicilian as the island’s written language. Italian’s used naturally spread beyond the corridors of the Auberges, and many of the Maltese upper and middle class ultimately adopted the language themselves as well.
It should be said that from a historical perspective, language has been used by colonial masters around the world as a means of establishing a kind of soft, cultural power on their subjects.
No more was this the case than with the British: throughout centuries they had sought to replace or even eliminate native languages in places as close to home as Scotland and Ireland, seeing the native languages as a means of harbouring national identity or patriotism – something naturally against their interests, since they were the colonisers.
It stood to reason therefore that the arrival of the British in Malta in 1800 would be prove to be the linguistic turning point for Malta.
This was a different situation however, than in other colonies. Where elsewhere the British had to contend with a national language, here they had to contend with the language of another power altogether – something which presents its own set of concerns, as it represents a cultural connection with another (in this case, Italian) political interest.
It was on this basis that the British moved to introduce the English language in Malta – not to replace the native, but only spoken Maltese; but to replace the official, foreign Italian.
It proved to be a bitter fight which is known in Maltese history as ‘The Language Question’.
With the British now in Malta for almost a century, there had been changes to the island’s social stratosphere as well.
The old, Italian-speaking Maltese upper and middle class were now finding themselves having to contend with a new, English-speaking middle class which had made its way up the social ladder owing to business ties with the British and its armed and naval forces.
Italy’s unification in 1871 had piqued the interest of many of the old upper class, and the newly established Partito Nazionale (which later become the Nationalist Party we know today) won a landslide election in 1883.
The colonial government however then announced the replacement of Italian in public schools with English and Maltese. The matter dragged on into the early 20th century when Gerald Strickland – a staunch Anglophile – decided to introduce English in the law courts as well, and confrontation was then inevitable when an order in 1901 allowed parents to choose whether their children should be examined in Italian or English at school.
The Nationalist Party at that point blocked the Budget, and Malta’s constitution was repealed in 1903.
The issue continued into the 1920s and 30s, and it was only when the British elected to use Maltese and a sufficient replacement for Italian – at least in the educational sector – that an impasse was somewhat reached.
Come 1940 then, the decision by the Italians to declare war on the British and bomb Malta put paid to any pro-Italian inclinations which remained.
The Italian television-induced renaissance
You would think then, that that would be that. Had it not been for the introduction of television, then it may well have been.
However, as it turned out, when television was introduced in Malta in the late 1950s, many Maltese were smitten with the Italian programmes transmitted on RAI, which preceded TVM – something which even prompted a return in the Italian language through what can be termed as “Italiano Televiso.”
Amongst the things that Maltese warmed to through Italian television was its football.
As a veritable forest of TV aerials sprouted up across the island, players such as Sivori, Facchetti, and Mazzola back then – and many others in the ensuing years – became household names.
The love for Italian football continued throughout the years and the generations: many who were born in the 1960s, for instance, soon after the introduction of television recall fondly exactly where they were when a Paolo Rossi hat-trick saw Italy beat Brazil 3-2 in that famous 1982 World Cup match – a World Cup which Italy went on to win.
Obviously, this didn’t apply to everyone: footballing support is, like many things in Malta, many times passed down from generation to generation – and as a result many maintained the long-held love for English football.
You are today in fact more likely to find Maltese people supporting English teams which were once at a certain peak, such as Leeds United, but which have since fallen away than you would find Maltese people supporting such Italian teams.
All in all, the way in which Maltese people fervently support Italy or England remains a fascinating element of cultural influences from bygone eras. Be it a residue of a colonial past, or a television-induced love for the sport of our neighbours – Malta’s unique Italy-England rivalry continues to exist, and even thrive – as shall no doubt be seen in the run-up to today’s Final.
Amidst all this talk of great rivalry, and what would happen if one team were to win over the other, just remember one thing: irrelevant of whether you are rooting for the Azzuri or the Three Lions – this is ultimately just a game.