Simone Bazzini leapt up in anticipation, a phantom muscle in his foot reflexively jerking out, laces primed to strike the ball on the half volley. His gut wobbled and muscles creaked in annoyance, his eyes strained to follow the flight of the ball, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that the cross he had been waiting for all his life was right where he wanted it, and he was about to exorcise all the moments of utter despair and false hope. He was about to put a 28-year-old wait to rest.
Just thirty seconds before Bazzini’s cathartic moment was to arrive in the six yard box, a lithe, athletic figure trotted around on the field far below, looking for all the world as if he was at a practice session in a remote training centre and a fashion photoshoot at the very same time. There was a swagger in every step, a faint hint of arrogance in his demeanor. His wild blonde mane was barely tamed by a white band, and his tanned, chiseled face and structure was statuesque. As he sought to find space between the lines, the young Roman seemed to know he was destined to be Rome’s favourite son for decades to come.
The 24-year-old AS Roma captain Francesco Totti burst into the box on instinct as Vincent Candela crossed the ball. In a flash, the ball was beyond Parma goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and had crashed into the roof of the net.
The 74,773 Romans at the Stadio Olimpico, including Bazzini, erupted as one as Totti ripped his shirt off, vaulted the advertising hoardings and ran across the running tracks to pour his soul out to them. AS Roma were going to win the 2000-01 Scudetto, the premier title in one of the top two leagues in the world.
Wait a minute. Top two?
That was then.
A tale of success and apathy
Fifty-three-year-old Bazzini had a grocery store in Baldo Degli Ubaldi, a less glamorous part of the historic city of Rome. Football was in his blood, with his father a youth player at AS Roma and a Romanista before him. Bazzini was never quite as talented, but he loved football with a passion. He was four years old when he attended his first Roma game, and six when he first went to the brand new Stadio Olimpico in 1953.
He saw Italian football and the league transform before his eyes. He watched players like Giacinto Facchetti, Luigi Riva, Guiseppe Bergomi, Franco Baresi, Diego Maradona, Marco van Basten, ZInedine Zidane, Roberto Baggio, Ronaldo and Gabriel Batistuta.
He saw the Serie A reaching heights unheard of in the sporting landscape. It was spoken of in hushed whispers among players and in foreign lands. It was supported by a passionate, football-crazy country and had attendances averaging at almost 40,000 spectators per match.
He saw his country winning the 1982 World Cup in Spain, largely due to the mercurial Paolo Rossi, who had been banned for three years (reduced to two) in 1980 for his part in the Totonero match-fixing scandal. The scandal was forgotten.
He saw his country host one of the most watched World Cups in history in 1990 in renovated stadiums that very soon became relics of a distant era. The legacy of Italia 1990 remained in the form of giant, poorly-designed government-owned structures that left each of the Italian cities they were built in saddled with debt and discontent. Spectators sat many metres away from the action in these multipurpose stadiums, and the atmosphere suffered drastically as a result. Bureaucratic and economic nightmares involved in even considering an upgrade meant the stadiums were forgotten.
Bazzini saw a gradual and then a steady decline in attendance at the Stadio Olimpico and in the Serie A in the seasons after their title triumph. In fact, the slow and inexorable slide to their worst ever attendance figures had begun back in 1997-98. Poor facilities and management apathy to violence and ultra-nationalist attacks during games put people off attending Serie A matches. The “Ultras” were ignored. The violence was dealt with by introducing operationally inefficient ID cards that put further barriers on people coming for games. The racism was laughed away. The supporters were forgotten.
A breaking point for Italian football
In the midst of the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal, Bazzini was a witness to his side winning a World Cup against the odds in 2006. Three months later, the Serie A registered its lowest attendance averages since 1970. The Serie A had been steadily plummeting in the UEFA coefficients since the turn of the century.
The Calciopoli was a match-fixing and referee bribing scandal which saw clubs like Juventus stripped of two titles and relegated and AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio docked points. It provided a chance for Italian football to organise a massive clean-up and to rise again.
Instead, it seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The problems with corruption were far-reaching and the rot had setin deep. In 2012, another long list of players was banned and fined. Antonio Conte, the current Chelsea and then the Siena manager, was banned for ten months (reduced to four). Italian football has only limped on since then. The supporters seem not to have forgiven or forgotten the constant betrayal.
Struggles in Europe
A one-time powerhouse capable of attracting top talent from around the world now has a problem retaining its stars and has slipped to fourth place in the UEFA standings, behind Spain, Germany and England. Italian clubs had reached the final of the Champions League for six successive years in the 1990s. Inter Milan won the Champions League in 2009-10 with an ageing squad and slid downward thereafter. Thus far in the 2010s, only Juventus have reached the finals, and even that seemed like a one-off.
There has been a disregard for the Europa League in the last 20 years, with the last winners of the competition being Parma 1998-99 (when it was the UEFA Cup). Parma now languish in the lower leagues, having gone bankrupt twice in the last 10 years. The quality of the mid-table sides dropped quite alarmingly in the 2000s with Juventus, AC Milan and Inter sweeping up all the trophies there were on offer.
Italy tries to catch up
The 2010s have seen both AC and Inter fall from their lofty pedestals into the mid-table scrimmage, forcing them to open up to foreign ownership to remain relevant. Modern management and marketing have been reluctantly embraced, and there is an effort to package the Serie A as a marketable product in an increasingly competitive football landscape. Brand valuations of clubs have taken a major hit due to inertia, but that could well change in the near future.
And so there are some positives in this tale of woe and disaster. The quality of the mid-table sides has improved overall. Little known Sassuolo finished sixth in 2015-16, and have performed creditably in the Europa League thus far.
Juventus moved into the brand new Juventus stadium in 2011, and have sold out their matches more often than not. They’re also one of the few Serie A clubs capable of challenging the European elite financially. The rest could do well to take a leaf out of their book.
Roma have already started the process of building a new stadium, and notoriously insular behemoths have started to open their doors to foreign ownership and the ways of a new world. A bid for an international competition might even force the hand of the authorities to build modern structures for the less fortunate clubs. Italy performed creditably at the Euro 2016, and give hope to the next generation of Italian footballers, previously dismissed as inferior.
Hope for the future
Simone Bazzini, now 69 years old, slowly makes his way up to his seat at the Curva Sud in the Stadio Olimpico. His hair is the colour of straw and his once-blue eyes clouded a milky gray. His gnarled hands clutch his season pass and the hand of his grandson, all of seven years old. His knees have begun to ache every time he makes this trip, but today the pain seems lesser. There may not be 75,000 at the stadium as there once were with regularity, but every one of the 35,000 present will take home a love for a lifetime.
In the last minute of regulation time against Sampdoria, a grizzled, muscular man stepped up to take a penalty that would give Roma all three points. The blonde mane was long gone, replaced by a close cropped style. The chiselled face had lost its boyish, youthful countenance, giving way to a hardened, granite-edged visage that age and experience bring.
Francesco Totti, all of 39 and a bit, ripped his shirt off, vaulted the advertising hoardings and raced to the Curva Sud, pouring his soul out to the crowd yet again.
There may still be life left in Italian football.