{"id":7670,"date":"2012-07-01T22:25:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-01T12:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=7670"},"modified":"2012-07-09T22:47:59","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T12:47:59","slug":"euro-2012-final-the-ballad-of-super-mario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=7670","title":{"rendered":"Euro 2012 Final: The Ballad of Super Mario"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“I don’t celebrate [when I score a goal] because I’m doing my job.\u00a0 Does a postman celebrate when he delivers the mail?”<\/em>
\n– Mario Ballotelli<\/p>\n

It couldn’t be scripted any better that Euro 2012, a tournament that brought into sharp focus the ugly side of European football that still struggles with rapant displays of racism, should find its star player in the most unlikely of places – Mario Ballotelli, a black Italian footballer.<\/p>\n

Racism has been at the forefront of a tournament that has otherwise produced some quality football, low scores and few upsets.\u00a0 It was already there in the pre-tournament warm up when players at the Dutch training camp were taunted by monkey noises from the stands.\u00a0 It was a matter that showed UEFA in less than flattering light when they fined Niklas Benter more money<\/em> for wearing the logo of an unofficial sponsor than for the Croatian fans when they were penalised for racist chants.\u00a0 And for Mario Ballotelli, racism has been part and parcel of life in Italy.\u00a0 When he played for Internazionale at the start of his career, Juventus fans taunted him with a banner that read “a negro cannot be Italian.”\u00a0 And to put this in context – Juventus aren’t considered to have particularly racist fans.\u00a0 There are far worse supporters for other clubs in Italy.<\/p>\n

I’ve plugged the book on TFW before but Tim Parks’ A Season With Verona<\/em> offers an excellent insight into how prevalent racism is in Italian football.\u00a0 It’s so ingrained into the culture that I cannot see it ever disappearing.\u00a0 There’s a particular attitude in Italy towards minorities, towards refugees and towards women that explains how someone like Silvio Berlusconi, a giant unlikable shitbag, can remain in power for so long.\u00a0 When he was shown the door, it wasn’t because of the underage prostitutes, it wasn’t his remarks about Barack Obama’s skin tone or calling Angela Murkel an ‘unfuckable lardarse’.\u00a0 It was because the economy went to shit.\u00a0 Being racist or misogynistic is a-okay, but don’t screw up our economy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which is what makes Mario Ballotelli so damned interesting.\u00a0 To be honest, he’d be an unusual proposition for Italy even if he was white.\u00a0 I always think of Italian football as being incredibly <\/em>conservative yet ruthlessly efficient.\u00a0 I think of players like Paolo Maldini, Dino Zoff and Alessandro Del Piero.\u00a0 Reliable players that have an ice cool demeanour.\u00a0 If they were having a shit day, you wouldn’t know it.<\/p>\n

Ballotelli is the opposite.\u00a0 You can probably tell if he’s going to have a great game or a rubbish one if you looked at his face when he gets off the team bus.\u00a0 He is hot headed and emotional, clashing with fans, coaches and players alike.\u00a0 He is everything that I don’t associate with the Italian style of play.<\/p>\n

Euro 2012 has been no different for Ballotelli.\u00a0 He’s scored goals and then yelled at his own team’s bench on the sidelines.\u00a0 There are players in his own squad that visibily have a problem with him and don’t celebrate goals with him.\u00a0 But he’s also playing some of the best football of his career and he took his game to another level when he dismantled the mighty Germany with two goals in the first half of the semi final.\u00a0 The second goal in particular was an unstoppable rocket.<\/p>\n

How will Ballotelli go in the final?\u00a0 Who the hell knows?\u00a0 I don’t think Super Mario knows.\u00a0 But it makes for incredible theatre.\u00a0 In a tournament that was defined by racism, there is no better underdog to cheer for.\u00a0 Since 2006, I have never cheered the Italian football team against any opposition.\u00a0 And yet I find myself so drawn to Ballotelli that I cannot help but cheer for him and subsequently cheer for Italy.\u00a0 I hope he wins.\u00a0 I hope he scores.\u00a0 And I hope he can do something to change the way football fans think in Italy.\u00a0 He’s not the hero that most of them asked for but he might be the one that they deserve.<\/p>\n

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“I don’t celebrate [when I score a goal] because I’m doing my job.\u00a0 Does a postman celebrate when he delivers the mail?” – Mario Ballotelli It couldn’t be scripted any better that Euro 2012, a tournament that brought into sharp focus the ugly side of European football that still struggles with rapant displays of racism, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1304,199,1305],"class_list":["post-7670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-euor-2012","tag-italy","tag-mario-ballotelli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7670"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7673,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670\/revisions\/7673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}