FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME, ITALIAN STYLE

By John F. Molinaro

Every four years the World Cup reminds us that soccer is much more than just a game to Italians.

In Italy, soccer is the national obsession, an integral part of the infrastructure of the Italian state of mind and of the Italian way of life.

It is Italy's passion for the sport that is examined with great eloquence, insight, style and wit in Forza Italia - A Journey In Search of Italy and Its Football, a new book by Irish journalist Paddy Agnew.

Agnew has lived in Rome for more than 20 years and is the Vatican correspondent for the Irish Times, one of the leading daily newspapers in Ireland. So, what does a self-described "Northern Prod" who covers the hallowed Vatican beat know about Italian soccer? Well, quite a bit actually.

On top of his duties for the Irish Times, Agnew has served as an English-language commentator on Serie A matches for state broadcaster RAI for the past 15 years and has covered Italian soccer for a slew of other news organizations.

Agnew has closely followed calcio, the Italian word for soccer, since moving to Rome in 1985 and has gained a reputation as one of the top experts on the Italian game.

In Forza Italia, he perfectly encapsulates the Italian obsession for the game when he writes that soccer "is not so much Italy's national sport as a virus woven into the DNA of the average Italian."

So why is soccer so important in Italy?

"I think it matters to Italians for a combination of reasons. One is you have that whole tradition of bread and circuses dating back to the Romans," Agnew recently told CBC Sports Online. "Historically, the tradition of spectacle has always been important in Italy. It's a culture in which what goes on in public really matters, the public perception matters … and therefore spectacle matters, and by extension [soccer] matters because it is a great spectacle."

Agnew also explained that everyday life in Italy is weighted down by forte raccomandazione - systematic string-pulling where you can only get ahead if you know people in high places - and that Italians turn to soccer because it is a true meritocracy.

"In Italy, a lot of people instinctively feel [suspicious] of a guy who gets named director of the local bank or the local hospital because they don't know if he has the skills to do it or if he landed the job through raccomandazione," explained Agnew

"But in [soccer], if you get picked to play in goal for Juventus and the goalkeeper starts letting in a lot of goals, you can quickly see he doesn't have the skill for the job. You can't hide [any shortcomings] on the [soccer field]. So I think Italians care about [soccer] because, to a certain extent, there's an element of clarity to it that everyday life in Italy doesn't offer."

Readers hoping for a comprehensive history of Italian soccer should look elsewhere because that's not what Forza Italia is about. Instead, it's the personal story of a thirty-something journalist who one day decided to leave his comfy job as an editor of the local newspaper in Dublin and head of to Italy with his future wife to start a new life in Rome without speaking a lick of Italian.

In between tales of covering games at Rome's Olympic Stadium, match-fixing scandals, and the rise of Silvio Berlusconi from owner of AC Milan to Italian prime minister, Agnew describes the difficulties he and his wife encountered when they first arrived in Italy: finding an apartment, buying a car, dealing with people butting in front of them in the line at the bakery.

The biggest culture shock for the couple was the discovery that the day-to-day efficiency that they were accustomed to in Ireland simply didn't exist in Italy - cashing an Irish income tax rebate check at the local bank took six weeks.

Eventually the couple adjusted to the rhythm of Italian life, mastered the language, raised a daughter, and found la dolce vita and professional success.

Agnew said that when originally contacted about writing a book, Random House was looking for someone to write a history of Italian soccer. The publisher quickly changed its mind after Agnew said he wanted to write "something much more personal" about his connection to the beautiful game in Italy for the past two decades.

"My idea was to write a book that would sum up my experiences and my opinion about the way things are in Italy, about the nature of society and the extent to which the nature of that society is reflected in its [soccer]"

Aside from being insightful, the book is also timely, its release coinciding with the current match-fixing investigations involving Juventus, historically the most successful club in Serie A.

Agnew dedicates an entire chapter to last season's Genoa-Venezia match fixing scandal in Serie B - the Italian second division - and astutely points out that the investigation that brought it to light "owed nothing to the vigilance of the [Italian soccer] authorities and everything to do with the professionalism of two Genoa-based investigating magistrates."

Agnew writes that Italian soccer offers a perfect window through which to look at society in Italy - that it simply reflects the society around it - and that Italian society is endemic with corruption.

As such, it's usually up to enterprising and ambitious magistrates from outside of Italian soccer, as opposed to officials inside the game, to uncover corruption and scandal.

"There is a huge similarity between the Genoa case and the way the current Juventus scandal has broken … For a start, magistrates have the power to tap phones, search buildings and offices, and check bank accounts - something [soccer] federation investigators and disciplinary commissions lack," said Agnew.

"Yet, the reality is, and I point this out in the book, that Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo [of Juventus] have been at the centre of intense [match-fixing] speculation for years vis-a-vis their modus operandi. How come the federation did nothing about them? Worse still, how come senior federation officials such as [Innocenzo] Mazzini appear, via the phone taps, to have been hand in glove with Moggi and his match-fixing schemes?"

The story of Agnew's Dublin departure and his Italian renaissance is a fascinating tale, one he re-tells with great humour and charm in Forza Italia. Though soccer serves as the premise for the book, it reads more like Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, intertwining stories of the rise and fall of Maradona and the Juventus doping trials with his own personal reflections on Italian life and society.

Thoughtful and poignant, Forza Italia is Agnew's personal survey of a country where soccer rivals Catholicism as the main faith, told from the unique perspective of an adopted Italian.

John F. Molinaro is the editor of CBC Sports Online's 2006 World Cup website. John covered the 2002 World Cup, 2003 Champions League final and Euro 2004 for Sports Online. He also won a CBC.ca Award of Excellence for his work on Sports Online's Euro 2004 website.