Under a full moon in a sky brushed with wispy clouds, three huge Fabio Grossos ran to the spot, kicked, scored and set off a roar in the Circus Maximus the like of which may not have been heard since classical times. Within minutes, the ancient arena was thick with smoke and ablaze with flares in the red, green and white of the tricolore. Some in the crowd were already flooding out towards the Piazza Venezia to carry on the celebrations in front of the monument to unification.
Delirious fans drove up and down the Lungotevere, the road on either side of the Tiber, honking their horns as passengers hung out of the windows flourishing Italian flags. The Via del Corso, which runs through the centre of the city, was packed with chanting fans, some on foot, others weaving perilously through the crowd on scooters.
”I’m so excited I’m giving up my university exams. I’m not going in tomorrow,” said Leonardo Tersigni from Sora, south of Rome, as thousands poured into the centre. ”Italy deserved this win. The Germans had a good team but it was too young. The French had a good team but it was too old. The Italians got it just right.”
A young woman passing by who did not want to give her name said: ”The best thing about this was, not just that we won, but that we won against the French.”
In the days when the oldest and biggest of Rome’s ancient arenas was used for chariot racing, it could supposedly hold 300 000 people. The police estimated that at least half as many packed in on Sunday night night to watch the World Cup final under the ruins on the Palatine hill. The crowd included a man on a giant tricycle with a teddy bear strapped to the front, a Franciscan friar accompanied by two nuns, and tens upon tens of thousands of mainly young supporters from the working-class suburbs of Rome.
Grosso’s kick sent thousands of plastic water bottles soaring into the air. Just minutes earlier, though, many were hurled towards the screens as the crowd was shown a replay of the other moment of real drama of the event — Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt on the chest of Marco Materazzi.
There has not been much to celebrate in Italy of late. The country emerged divided from an acrimonious general election in April. Italian football is reeling from a match-fixing scandal involving four top clubs. The economy is almost at a standstill and the new centre-left government is telling Italians the only way to move forward is by accepting painful sacrifices. Sunday night’s victory could ease the pain.
The mood in Paris was dejection coupled with a sense that the ageing team had done as much as could be expected. Even President Jacques Chirac, said the team had made the country proud. He reserved his fondest words for Zidane, ”a man who incarnated the most beautiful values of sport and the biggest human qualities you can imagine and was an honour to French sport and simply an honour to France.”
At Le Monarch bar behind the Champs-Elysées there was a stunned silence after the final Italian penalty hit the back of the net. Then questions turned to why France’s national hero had headbutted his opponent and been sent off. ”There has got to be an explanation, it could have been a racist taunt,” said Patrick, who had come from the suburbs. ”I’m sad for the team and for what the media will do to them. But on the estates in the suburbs, everyone is behind them.”
Thousands of police remained on the streets of Paris and other cities on Sunday night to prevent a repeat of the chaos after France’s semifinal success last week in which six people died. More than 130 cars were burnt. – Guardian Unlimited Â