Fairy Tales

News broke today that Fabio Capello, manager of the potentially relegated Juventus, has resigned as the match-fixing verdicts get ever nearer. The prosecution for this case also recommended today that Juve be relegated two divisions, and that demotion should also apply to Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio - clubs that supply many of the Italy squad currently preparing for a World Cup semi with Germany. A week ago, one day prior to their second round match with Australia, the Italians learned of the suicide attempt of Gianluca Pessotto, former team mate of many, and simply 'mate' of some. Not the ideal preparation you would think.

Yet teams that win World Cups, a bit like Grand National winners, always seem to have a story behind them that makes their triumph seem like some kind of fantasy. Think of the likes of the written off Brazil of 1994, Kempes and Maradona's Roy of The Rovers-esque efforts in 1978 and 1986, the France team of 1998 which had failed to qualify for the two previous World Cups, and perhaps best of all the West Germans of 1954 who came from two down in the final to beat Hungary, having lost 8-3 to the same opponents earlier in the competition. Also high on this list would be the victorious Italians of 1982. Two years prior to the tournament, Italy had suffered a match fixing scandal that led to two major clubs being relegated and several players being banned, one of which, Paulo Rossi, returned from his ban to play in the World Cup. After a nightmare start in which Italy scraped through the group stage without winning a game, the written-off Rossi scored six goals in the final 3 matches of the tournament to help Italy take the trophy.

A few pundits have made the Azzurri's current campaign out to be a carbon copy of '82, which it most certainly isn't, yet there are enough similarities to make the more romantic among us start to lean towards Italy when selecting a champion from the remaining four contenders. Match-fixing has reared its ugly head once again, though this time the problem is very much of present concern, unlike in 1982. The scandal however, as so often happens, appears to have created unity amongst the Italian squad, a most valuable commodity amongst a group well known for temperament issues. As the presidents, directors, managers, referees and gangsters involved all await their fates, to be known almost immediately after the World Cup final, the players seem to have cocooned themselves, more determined than ever that this will not affect their chance of glory.

It is most doubtful that Luca Toni will repeat Rossi's feats, and Toni's brace against Ukraine, scored as his place in the team had been brought into question after four goalless outings, is not quite comparable with Rossi's hat-trick against Brazil at the equivalent stage in '82 which came after a similar barren run, but again the resemblance is there. Who knows what the two goals will do for the confidence of someone who had the ability to score 30 serie A goals last season.

In addition to any positive omens that go with Italy, there are several negative ones that apply to the Germans, whose dreadful record against tonight's opposition I detailed in a previous post, and who the Italians beat to win the 1982 World Cup.

Now, I realise there's nothing whatsoever in all this that even approaches a concrete reason why Italy will beat Germany tonight and go on to win the World Cup, and indeed I have discussed the likelihood of an Italian success based on a more rational argument previously in this blog. But those who think vague historical comparisons are meaningless underestimate the power of psychology in football. Whether or not there are any worthy parallels between the Azzurri of 1982 & 2006 is irrelevant compared with whether the Italian players believe that there are. The thought that to win is your destiny, that your victory has already been decided, that it is actually impossible for you to lose - now that's a powerful mindset to take on to the field with you in a World Cup semi-final. Equally, the idea that you are playing your bogey team, a team that has got the better of not only your generation but all your predecessors as well, is not a good one to go into such a big match with. The Germans are renowned for their mental strength - will they have put such thoughts out of their mind? Is it possible for them to do so when such statistics fill every newspaper in the run up to the game?

When you hear a commentator ask, 'can history play a part in the outcome?', what they are really asking is 'can these footballers put superstition out of their minds?'. The same footballers who wear lucky shorts, lucky pants, lucky boots, walk out in their lucky position in the line, don't put on their lucky shirt until they've walked over their lucky bit of the tunnel and waved to their lucky wife at home sitting on the lucky chair holding the lucky dog - will these players be able to forget about superstition for a night?

To the rational thinking person, the Germans hold all the aces, they appear in better form, their performances have gathered momentum, the crowd is theirs in the most atmospheric stadium in the World Cup, their forwards are scoring much more freely than the opposition, and they have defeated better sides in the two previous rounds than the Italians. In addition, Italy's best player, someone who would surely need to be at his best for his team to win a game of such magnitude, is out of form and unreliable. The Germans are surely worthy favourites.

But is 'history' on their side?