A Season With Verona

by Tim Parks

  In short, everything is returning to normal. But sitting in the bar where day by day I read my Gazzetta, the polygamous Mohammed opposite me half-asleep by the paraffin stove with his hat over his face, I feel upset that I wasn’t among the popolo gialloblù that day in Turin. I feel the pull of the event and its squalid drama. I should have been there with the boys. I should have been part of what happened. Camoranesi, the paper tells me, will be out for at least a month.

  Il Verdetto del Campo

  Win for us, Hellas Verona … and these miserable peasants will magically disappear.

  can de la scala, sav@l.it

  ‘ANCELOTTI GETS IT Right’ was the headline to the Gazzetta’s match report the day after Verona–Juventus. Ancelotti is the Juventus coach. But what if Montero’s scalp had not accidentally deflected that final shot? ‘Ancelotti Goofs Again’, the paper might have said. I accept ‘il verdetto del campo,’ Perotti tells us: ‘the field’s verdict’ – a favourite platitude. The final score exorcises the game, decides the paper’s headlines, clears the way for the next encounter.

  But if every match report is written under the spell of the official result, then as the season progresses every game is played more and more under the spell of the accumulation of those results, the ultimate verdict towards which the whole season is tending. After losing two games in a row, it’s time to take a look at the league table.

  There are eighteen teams in Serie A, hence each team plays thirty-four games, seventeen home, seventeen away. So we’re now about a quarter of the way through. At the end of the season the top two teams will be admitted to the Champions’ League, the third and fourth will play off with some similarly positioned foreign club for a further place in the Champions’ League while the fifth and sixth teams, together with the winner of the Coppa Italia, will be admitted to the UEFA Cup and the seventh and eighth will play off for admission. If any of the top teams actually wins a European competition, they gain admission automatically and this will make another place available for the ninth and even the tenth teams, if we assume that the winner of the Coppa Italia is one of the top clubs.

  Meantime at the bottom of the table four teams will go down into Serie B. Unlike the English league, then, the whole thing is carefully arranged so that almost all the teams will finish the season in a state of elation or misery. Asked to comment on what he has learned in his first months of Italian football, the Croatian Mario Cvitanovic, a worried-looking boy with dark, close-set eyes beneath a fashionable centre parting, reflects: ‘Here in Italy, after every game, you are either in paradise or in hell.’

  He’s right. This is what Italians want. A constant alternation between trionfo and tristezza; vittoria and vergogna. When you think about it, even those four or five teams that finish the season with neither a negative nor positive result, neither in Europe nor in Serie B, will either be appalled that they just missed entry to the big competitions or elated that they have just escaped relegation. It is this last emotion that the Veronese are dreaming of.

  In any event, the slow accretion of the league table is the glue that from week to week holds together the intense experience of each Sunday’s game, prevents it from becoming a mere super-imposition of the same emotions, gives it direction and purpose. After day eight, then, Roma are top. They’ve won seven and lost one. It’s an extraordinary performance. Inevitably the papers are full of pseudo-political headlines of the variety ‘Balance of power shifts from north to south’. Fresh from Serie B, Atalanta haven’t lost a single game: five wins and three draws. This is even more remarkable. Udinese and Bologna have also performed beyond expectations. ‘Revenge of the Provincials’ is the papers’ line here. Everything must be seen in terms of established rivalries, the ever-vibrant force-fields of Italian national life – north/south; big city/small city. There is nothing that can happen in Italian football that will not be seen in terms of an ancient quarrel. Meanwhile, the individuals – players, coaches, even owners – are interesting only in so far as they further an old cause.

  Or fail to further it. Napoli’s Slav coach Zeman, so famous for his complicated schemes and all-out attacking style, has been fired. Reggina’s coach will surely be the next to go. And most likely Bari’s. With the gearing that gives three points for a win and one for a draw, even the drawn game can be seen as a disaster, especially if a direct rival is winning elsewhere. Now at the stadium as the game progresses the eye periodically glances up at the screen above the Curva Nord that will flash out a new result whenever someone scores in Serie A; now every game is understood and interpreted in the light, or gloom, of all the other games. It’s a complicated business. The whole country is united in mutual tension, an invisible criss-crossing of envy and schadenfreude. Cheers are raised that have nothing at all to do with the game in hand: Vicenza are going down again. The crowd groans, even as their players perform well: Napoli have scored. And week by week the spell grows stronger. ‘We must win the game against Brescia,’ announces the mild-mannered Perotti. ‘There is no alternative.’ He is growing more tense, more obsessive. Good. That’s how we want him.

  As it turned out, the next three games, like the game against Roma for that matter, all started in exactly the same way, with Verona scoring within five minutes of the kick-off. After which all of them offered only the agony of hoping the result could be defended, the dismal business of watching the yellow-blues milling and flailing around the edge of their area with fluttering knees and feverish minds. The team is getting worse.

  Against Roma, Verona had opened with a beautifully fast move that ended, in less than a minute, with Gilardino being pulled down by the goalkeeper and Oddo scoring from the spot. For half an hour the boys had hung on, but were finally overwhelmed. By the time Roma’s equaliser came, the fans were resigned. The three goals that followed were no more than expected. We didn’t suffer much.

  Against Brescia an unlucky rebound from a defender set up Bonazzoli alone in front of goal. This was about five minutes into the game. He shot perfectly into the far corner. For the rest of the match the crowd sat in utter misery as Brescia outclassed and outplayed us. Roberto Baggio, in particular, seemed to put our defenders under a spell. At half-time, despite being one–nil up, everybody around me was convinced that Verona were bound for Serie B. How could we play this badly? It was painful, enthralling. In the second half Brescia poured in everything, substituted attackers for defenders, seemed interminably on the point of scoring, though without ever quite getting a shot at goal. Five minutes from time, quite undeserved, Verona snatched a second on the break. The curva rejoiced. ‘Bye bye Brescia,’ they sang (in English!) to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. ‘Serie B, Serie B, Serie B.’

  At the ninetieth, with Verona already celebrating and the so-called fourth referee indicating a full five minutes’ injury time, Brescia got one back. All of a sudden, the match was a replay in reverse of the Juventus game. Verona collapsed completely. With seconds to go Brescia hit the post, and when at last the final whistle went, a curious combination of elation and disgust settled on the ground. We had played our worst game of the season and won. Should we be applauding or whistling our contempt? Boasting of the efficiency of Verona’s police force, tomorrow’s paper will publish a picture of one of the town’s specially armoured, rigorously glass-free buses taking the appalled Brescia fans away. Their faces can be seen pressed against the wire netting that has replaced the windows. ‘Africa’, someone has written in spray paint on the outside.

  ‘O butei,’ a message appears on The Wall, ‘our next game’s in Africa.’ With Reggina’s pitch disqualified after last week’s crowd trouble, their game with Verona has been moved from Reggio Calabria to Catania, Sicily.

  This was a crunch moment for me. All kinds of things were going on. When I wrote my article for La Stampa I had made it clear to the editor that I wanted no mention of the fact that I was planning a book. The paper published the piece under the headline: ‘Writer among the Hooligans: Parks Writes Book on the B
rigate Gialloblù.’ The next day, without contacting me, the local Arena reproduced this ‘news’ and much of my article in four generous columns. I was nervous. How would the brigate react? Would they feel spied on? Would they feel irritated by this apparent claim to be one of them? Could I travel with them again?

  And did I want to? Catania is 1,200 kilometres from Verona, about as far as you can go in Italy. I have never been there before. Tentatively, I phoned the Zanzibar, hoping that there might be a plane chartered. ‘They’re going by bus,’ the barman tells me. ‘Leave a phone number and we’ll contact you.’ A young woman called. After explaining that the bus would leave at six-thirty Friday evening, taking a total of sixteen to eighteen hours to reach Catania, she suddenly said, ‘But you have an accent. You’re English.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You must be Tim Parks. I saw in the paper.’ ‘Yes.’

  An hour later she phoned again. ‘There’s only one seat left and three people on the waiting list, but the place is yours if you want it. We want you to come.’ There was genuine excitement in her voice. I declined. But at the same time I realised I’d have to go to the game now. It would be a fraud to write about the season without going there. These people, who weren’t writing about it, were going to every single match at great effort and expense. ‘I’m going by plane,’ I invented, and asked, ‘Why can’t we all go by plane?’ ‘Too expensive,’ she said. The bus price would be 200,000 lire, the plane cost 700,000. ‘They might give us a group reduction,’ I suggested. ‘They’d never take us,’ she said. No doubt she was right.

  No sooner had I put the phone down than I thought: 700,000 is too. much for a football game, a miserable game between two desperate teams scrapping over relegation in an empty neutral stadium. ‘450,000 if you stay over Saturday night,’ the airline told me. It was the decisive moment. Don’t go, I thought, watch it on TV. Saturday games are shown on pay TV in the bars. I could walk to the Stonehenge, a wonderfully fake English theme pub run by a busty transsexual on the hillside near our village. They have a huge screen surrounded by paraphernalia of the ship’s cannon and ancient trombone variety. It would be full of fourteen-year-olds wearing blue-and-yellow bobble hats and shouting Diaolo boia over glasses of Coca-Cola. That too could be an experience.

  But if Catania was a crunch game for me it was also surely a test case for the whole question of Italian national unity. Verona–Catania. I looked again at the map. From the Alps to Etna, the two extremes of Italy, north-east to south-west. One tends to forget how long this country is. Past Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples, Reggio, the Strait of Messina. Could these be the same people? I booked my ticket and at seven in the morning, with the fans no doubt toiling and blaspheming in a drunken haze down the Amalfi coast, I flew right over them across the blue water of the Ionian.

  This is 9 December. At the airport it is raining heavily. It just will not stop raining. Buckling into my seat, I stare out of the window at the rain, thinking about Perotti and the wonderful job of being a football coach, of being paid, handsomely paid, to reflect on all the possible combinations of twenty and more young and talented men, each with his different psychology, his different strengths and weaknesses. The plane rises through thick cloud. The Alps are invisible, but as we cross the Apennines the familiar landscape appears. Strands of mist shine like fresh snow on the ancient hills, then the sea is liquid copper under the morning sun. You fly directly over the Eolie islands, until, dropping down, there is Etna, a picture-book volcano, taller, more majestic than I had imagined, its high crater topped with Christmas icing. Beyond, at the bottom of long slopes of vines and lemon trees, right on the dazzle of the coast, is Catania.

  Italians will always insist on the differences between north and south. How could they so incessantly complain about each other if there were none? And up to a point they’re right. When I ask for a granita I don’t get the crushed ice of the northern version, but a sort of liquid almond ice-cream, more an Arab sherbet. And the croissants here are always served hot. There’s a difference. White-jacketed, a warm sun on his face, the waiter is a charming caricature of southern vanity. It wouldn’t do up north. I’m sitting at a table in one of the central squares. I’m outside, for heaven’s sake, in December. How wonderful. But there’s more noise in the street here than in Verona, I tell myself critically. More children screaming. You can’t help noticing that. And the traffic is constantly on the verge of deadlock. I look up. Whereas Verona, through its foggy winters, has warm ochre walls and pink marble pavements, Catania under its blistering summer sun is lava grey, a monumental mix of volcanic rock and white limestone. That’s something that would take a little getting used to.

  I take a bus east along the coast to check out the fishing village of Aci Trezza where Giovanni Verga set his great novel I malavoglia. Stone angels on the church façade blow their judgment-day trumpets right in the noses of the painted trawlers pulled up in the port. With its glare and shadow and Saturday morning leisure among pots of oleanders and lemon trees, the place is so beautiful it’s hard to see how Verga could have been such a pessimist. But those were the days of poverty and malaria.

  Sitting in a bar I read a local newspaper that draws a parallel between Sicily’s hosting first a game from Serie A (a rare occurrence) and then next week a United Nations Conference on Criminal Organisations. These are good signs, the paper thinks, indications that Sicily is not to be for ever left out of everything. Perhaps soon they will have a team in Serie A themselves. Perhaps soon they can be thought of more for crime prevention than Mafia.

  How familiar this regional perspective is with its paradoxical mix of self-regard and malcontent! A long article proudly describes the restoration of the capitol of the Greek Temple of Concord in Agrigento, built around 450 BC. An editorial complains that last time the Veronese played in Catania, when Etna was erupting and the city threatened, the Veronese fans brought banners saying Forza Etna! ‘We should put local rivalries aside and support our cousins across the water,’ the journalist decides. ‘We must form a common front against these northern barbarians.’ Well, here is a real difference. I can’t imagine the Veronese supporting Vicenza or Brescia under any circumstances, not even against a team of extra-terrestrials.

  There’s been a strangely balmy feel to this morning, I decide, folding up La Sicilia, watching the slower, slightly dragging gait of the shoppers, listening to their drawling voices that stretch and soften the vowels. Is it a caress or a whine? ‘We mustn’t be always whining like those miserable terroni,’ somebody wrote on The Wall, apropos of what, I can’t remember. Then the distant sight of the old Norman castle back towards the town, high and solid on a rocky outcrop above the coast, suddenly makes me nervous. The Normans in Catania! The Greeks in Agrigento! There were a pair of away games and no mistake! Time to get to the stadium.

  On the one occasion when I made the mistake of accepting an invitation to a big Italian talk show, I was immediately attacked by a rumbustious ‘expert’ who accused me of knowing nothing about Italy. He turned to another guest, an octogenarian Neapolitan actress, and fired a question, to which she replied at length in the Neapolitan dialect of sixty yean ago. ‘What do you think of that?’ he demanded. We were speaking in front of a theatre audience who had all been bussed in from Naples. I understood nothing and was thus quickly and entirely discredited before a giggling public, though perfectly aware that almost nobody born north of Rome would have understood, while the lady herself would have got nowhere with the Brigate Gialloblù. ‘Italy’, the man insisted, ‘is divided by its different languages.’

  He was right. There’s always a comic moment at the stadium when the fans get on to the language problem. ‘Pà-à-uh-a! Pà-à-uh-a!’ the Veronese chanted in Bergamo, imitating the way the locals pronounce that key word pastasciutta. And then they broke out into the song that at some point gets sung at every game. The tune is the old favourite ‘Guantanamera’. The song has but one idea.

  ‘Non si capisce ma come cazzo parlate,

  Non si
capi-i-i-sce ma come cazzo parlate!’

  Which briefly translates as: ‘We can’t understand what the fuck you’re saying.’ And implies: the centre of the world is our city, our language, our accent.

  In any event, as I pushed through the turnstile of the sezione ospiti at the Cibali stadium in Catania, the boys were already singing it. Less than a hundred of them, but in excellent voice, immediately declaring their racial superiority, punching their fists in the air, tightly hemmed in by the inevitable riot police.

  ‘Get ready,’ I told my companion, for I was not alone.

  The moment I knew I was going down to Catania, I called a friend who has worked down there and asked him for the number of someone who could find me a hotel. Daniela teaches English in primary schools. On the phone she duly recommended a place to stay, then showed amazement that I should be going to a game. She has never been to a game. ‘Come along,’ I told her, ‘come and see the brigate.’ She wouldn’t dream of going to see a bunch of uncouth northern racists. ‘I dare you,’ I said. So here I am being driven to a game by a dark, slim, well-endowed woman in a dress that is short, tight and generously décolléte. Curious that, thinking as she does of these fans, she should come thus attired. ‘O Dio,’ she shivers when she hears those voices. ‘Non si capisce ma come cazzo parlate.’