No World Cup, but Italy ablaze in soccer

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This article was published 21/10/2022 (1152 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROME — The World Cup does not exist here.

It was cancelled shortly before 10 p.m. on March 24, when North Macedonia forward Aleksandar Trajkovski’s stoppage-time goal in Palermo put Italy out of, well, that tournament that isn’t happening. (Trajkovski, incidentally, played three seasons in Sicily, because the wound wasn’t already sufficiently salted.)

Naturally, the immediate reaction was apocalyptic. “ALL’INFERNO” (TO HELL) roared Corriere dello Sport. And then, desolation. Nothingness. It never happened. It won’t happen. Not if the list of forbidden words also includes “Trajkovski,” “Dimitrievski,” “Berardi,” “Mancini” and “Qatar.”

It’s not an exaggeration. One even learns you cannot vocalize the observation that it is not a thing, lest you be shushed, in words and gestures, and guided to another topic of discussion.

Club football, perhaps. Which is understandable, because this country’s domestic league is enjoying a unique moment of excitement. It’s almost as if the enthusiasm typically directed to the national team has been re-routed to Serie A.

Another observation you cannot make, because, well, you just can’t. And so you talk about AS Roma, or about SS Lazio — but never with the same person. Like cappuccino after 11 a.m., it’s simply something you do not do.

A Roma fan, for their part, will gush about captain Lorenzo Pellegrini — born in Rome, which is of considerable importance. Only eight players have skippered i Giallorossi since 1987. Five of them were born here and wore the armband for 32 of those 35 seasons.

With a quarter of the season behind them, Roma are fourth in the table —holding a coveted Champions League spot — and could rise as high as second if results this weekend go their way. Of course, they’d also have to win Sunday’s match at home to Napoli in the Derby del Sole (1:45 p.m., fuboTV and TLN). And Napoli, unbeaten in all competitions this term, are top of the division.

Gli Azzurri’s perhaps surprising success — they’ve also won all four of their Champions League matches to date, including a 4-1 defeat of Liverpool — is as much about subtraction as addition.

When his sizeable contract expired in the spring, club icon Lorenzo Insigne joined Toronto FC, and striker Dries Mertens followed him out the door of Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. While he’d scored 148 goals for the club over nine seasons, at 35 the Belgium international had noticeably slowed. Partenopei sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli then fleeced Chelsea for €40 million as defender Kalidou Koulibaly jetted off to London.

The exits made room for the arrivals of commanding centre-back Kim Min-jae, sharpshooting striker Giacomo Raspadori, and, crucially, the smooth, playmaking forward Khvicha Kvaratshkelia.

Thanks to a masterpiece of scouting, Napoli were able to acquire the 21-year-old Georgian from Dinamo Batumi for about US10 million — a bargain, as he may be worth 10 times that already. Possessing the instinctive ability to create space and open channels for his teammates, he can also blow a match wide open with a sudden burst of speed or shot from distance.

Playfully nicknamed Kvaradona by Napoli supporters, Kvaratshkelia is suddenly expected to deliver a first Scudetto since the Maradona-led triumph of 1990.

Roma, too, have endured an agonizing wait for a first title since their own talisman, Totti, claimed the trophy for the city in 2001. There isn’t a comparable figure in the contemporary team, but manager Jose Mourinho has reintroduced both success and expectation to Stadio Olimpico through his distinctive, if not cynical, commitment to defense.

La Lupa have conceded a meagre nine tallies in 10 outings. Thing is, they’ve scored just four more than that, and top producer Paulo Dybala’s injury will make goals even harder to come by on Sunday.

Now, a Lazio fan will point out that their defensive record is even better than Roma’s. And — with emphasis — they’ve also put 21 goals in the net and have lost just once in Serie A.

Fair play. Although they trail their local rivals by a point, I Biancocelesti are this city’s form team and could also rise to second with a fortuitous weekend. As it happens, they’ll be facing the current second-place outfit, Atalanta, in Lombardy on Sunday (11 a.m., fuboTV).

For their part, Atalanta will move to the head of the ledger with a win over Lazio and a Napoli loss in Rome. Midfielder Teun Koopmeiners, who’s enjoying an explosive start to the season and on Friday was named to the Netherlands’ preliminary World Cup squad, has speculated his side might even win a first Scudetto.

Given the struggles at Juventus and early wobbles from the Milan teams, it’s quite possible the 2022-23 campaign could produce an unlikely champion. Lazio, who last won the league in 2000 under Sven Goran Eriksson, are certainly in the mix, and their supporters aren’t shy about insisting they’ll end the drought this spring.

In Patric and Alessio Romagnoli they have a sturdy partnership in front of new goalkeeper Ivon Provedel—that rare specimen of shot-stopper who has also scored a goal. Midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic can take on just about any role in the centre of the park, and Mattia Zaccagni has an eye for goal at the moment.

And he’d better keep scoring, because 2020 European Golden Shoe winner Ciro Immobile will miss the rest of the calendar year through injury. Of course, it’s not as devastating a loss as it sounds, as Lazio have only five league matches between now and January — a consequence of that something-or-other that isn’t taking place next month.

What calcio fans do between mid-November and mid-December remains a mystery, although women’s Serie A is off to a competitive start, and both Roma and Juventus recently kicked off the Champions League group stage with victories.

No, football in this country isn’t headed all’inferno. The World Cup may be cancelled, but the club game hasn’t been this compelling in quite some time. In fact, the evening matches go down rather nicely with a limoncello or Chambord.

So they say.

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