Won zero

One of my favourite sporting memories is the final of the 2002 European Championships. Italy were winning 1-0 against France, the then World Cup holders. Late in the game Alessandro Del Piero broke free and was on his own, running almost the length of the field at Fabian Barthez. With only the keeper to beat, he fluffed his lines (badly). France went on to score a late equaliser and then a golden goal to win 2-1. This moment was the origin of the verb 'to Del Piero' which means 'to make the least of a good oppurtunity'.

At the time I was sad as I wanted Italy to win. Now I am happy.

But can it be said that Australia 'Del Pieroed' their moment yesterday? With 11 men against 10 (granted all 10 of them are defenders) Australia should have scored, even though they seemed quite intelligently waiting out the heat for extra time. Did we overcrowd the box as Johnny Nonation suggests? It is possible. The truth has to be said and that there was no goal, zero, and all with one player up. Ask the Dutch how they feel about this.

But watching Italy play, watching Del Pierro earn a free kick for a blatant dive, watching the 'anti-playing' of the ubiquitous Azzurri defence was like slowly strangling your lover during coitous to see the abyss open up behind the eyes at the moment of death. And you know the moment of death is the last instant of life, la petit mort. And you know they always say, never look into the eyes of a dying person. Yesterday, I understood that Italian football had looked too long too often into the obsidian lenses of the dead.

Call it divine intervention, 'the dive of God', call it corruption or cheating, hell, even call it 'winning', but when you return to the solitude of the showers, the change room, your champagne drinking model wife in the hotel room, and ultimately your patria after the Cuban holiday, you have to ask: 'Who am I?'

The answer for Italy is probably zero, nothing. They won nothing because they didnt have anything left in their hands. Once the death occurs and the eyes lose their shine, there is nothing left to seize onto. To steal (or was it given them by Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo?) the match with a dive and converted penalty with the last breath in the last (infinite) seconds of normal time and claim it as something gained is a divine comedy. For Totti, a man who was sent off and banned in the 2004 European championships for spitting at an opponent, to take the penalty and claim glory with raised fists and triumph is another teatro to go alongside all the others. This is not victory.

The irony is that in a certain sense, it was the Italians who 'gave' football to Australia in the first place. It was always the Italians in the early days of post-racist Australia in the 80s who seemed to be most associated with football, more even than the Poms. What maybe Totti, Grosso, Del Piero and probably Berlusconi's mates at the other end of the telephone line, don't realise is that they have now truly given football to Australia. We now have an enemy, a historical opponent, each time we play we play for this memory, we play this rift as Kane and Abel. Lest we forget. This is what Australia came to the World Cup for. We now have our own football history and we take a lot with us. The courage, the respect, the experience the momentum for our own domestic game (at least we hope).

The Italians, let them go on pretending. Their lonelinees now only closes in a little as those loyal or at least neutral turn away from what cannot be sustained with dignity. Like England and Sven in a different way. Whereas England hide behind their piles of Premiership cash, the Italians will go back to a Serie A World that no longer exists. Grosso thankfully is a Palermo man and not playing for one of the four clubs facing corruption at the moment, but Del Piero can't claim the same. Will he be worth rescuing from Juventus as they drift to the murky bottom of Italian football and Serie B? I think not, unless shirt sales start to fall.

Australia lost. Italy lost more. We, at least, are on the side of life. And to all those Italians in the campus bar who told me to go home. Fuck you. Catalonia is not Spain and it certainly isnt Italy. I'm going out now to buy my Ukraine shirt.