The Italian Way of Life - Italy - page 1831

andare a vedere la partita di pallone?' ('Why, why do you always leave me alone on
Sunday so you can go and watch the football match? ' ). It's no coincidence that in Italian
tifoso means both 'football fan' and 'typhus patient'. When the ball ricochets off the post
and slips fatefully through the goalie's hands, when half the stadium is swearing while the
other half is euphorically shouting Gooooooooooooooool!, 'fever pitch' is the term that
comes to mind.
Nothing quite stirs Italian blood like a good (or a bad) game. Nine months after Italy's
2006 World Cup victory against France, hospitals in northern Italy reported a baby boom.
In February the following year, rioting at a Palermo-Catania match in Catania left one po-
liceman dead and around 100 injured. Blamed on the Ultras - a minority group of hard-
core football fans - the violence shocked both Italy and the world, leading to a temporary
ban of all matches in Italy and increased stadium security. A year earlier, the match-fixing
'Calciopoli' scandals resulted in revoked championship titles and temporary demotion of
Serie A (top-tier national) teams, including the mighty Juventus.
Yet, the same game that divides also unites. You might be a Lazio-loathing, AS Roma
supporter on any given day, but when the national Azzurri (The Blues) swag the World
Cup, you are nothing but a heart-on-your-sleeve italiano (Italian). In his book The 100 Th-
ings Everyone Needs to Know About Italy, Australian journalist David Dale writes that
Italy's 1982 World Cup win 'finally united twenty regions which, until then, had barely
acknowledged that they were part of the one country.'
Born an Assisi heiress, introduced to the joys of poverty by St Francis himself, and co-founder
of the first Franciscan abbey, St Clare gained another claim to fame in 1958 as the patron saint
of TV.
Opera: Let the Fat Lady Sing
At the stadium, your beloved squadra (team) hits the field to the roar of Verdi. Okay, so
you mightn't be first in line to see Rigoletto at La Fenice, but Italy's opera legacy remains
a source of pride. After all, not only did you invent the art form, you gave the world some
of its greatest composers and compositions. Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) transformed
Pierre Beaumarchais' Le Barbier de Séville (The Barber of Seville) into one of the
greatest comedic operas, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) produced the epic Aida, while Gi-
acomo Puccini (1858-1924) delivered staples such as Tosca,Madama Butterfly and Tur-
andot .