serieAmerica » Stupido al di là delle Parole

(Stupid Beyond Words)

Before I get started, let me say this: I respect Scotland’s football team, and am impressed with what they’ve done this campaign. Should they defeat Italy on Saturday, then by all means, they deserve to qualify. In fact, one could argue that they deserve to qualify regardless of the result. Their performance in this set of qualifiers was that impressive. Indeed, they will probably continue to impress – particularly this Saturday – when they face our Azzurri.

Will Scotland’s talent, spirit, and the voices of their Tartan Army be enough to see them through? That remains to be seen. Obviously, I am an Italy supporter, and as such, I hope that the Azzurri can overcome anything that they confront in Scotland… but at the same token, I will not malign or defame Scotland, its fans, or its national team. First of all, they wouldn’t deserve it. Sure, they have a tougher, more hard-tackling style of play than Italy… but that’s fine. It’s their style. To hurl accusations at them and call them names would not be in the spirit of the game / good will.

Unfortunately, however, BBC’s Chick Young apparently didn’t get the memo on good will. In fact, he seems determined to spread the opposite.

Let’s take a look at some of his more ridiculous comments regarding the upcoming match:

It is more than a football match now. It’s Clark Kent versus Lex Luther, Popeye against Bluto. It’s good over evil.

I know he’s making a (failed) attempt at clever metaphors here, but is he seriously likening Scotland to Popeye? Clark Kent, I get; he a seemingly regular guy who’s really Superman, and can therefore pull off all kinds of amazing feats. Popeye, though? Seriously? (Look, Chick, if you want to characterize your team as a sailor with deformed forearms and a speech impediment, that’s fine with me; I’m not stopping you.) Oh wait… Popeye has super powers too, right? That’s right – Popeye eats spinach and then can kick a$$. Well then, what’s Scotland’s spinach? What are they going to gulp down when the situation is dire? Is the Tartan Army spinach? (You said it, Chick, not me. I’m just trying to understand.)

How about his last sentence: “It’s good over evil.” The Azzurri are evil? That’s news to me. First of all, if the Azzurri were evil, would it be “good over evil” already? (Last time I checked, the match had’t been played yet, Chick.)

They have polluted it with match-fixing and corruption, riddled it with the cancer of crowd violence and even, it would seem, used verbal abuse in the World Cup final to rid their opponents of their most dangerous player.

I’m assuming that by “match-fixing and corruption,” he’s referring to calciopoli, which had nothing to do with the players, and nothing to do with the national team. That said, it simply has no bearing on this match, or on the Azzurri. (Nice try though, Chick.)
As for the crowd violence, yes, it’s a problem in Italy – but again, it has nothing to do with this match. Also, should someone from the UK really criticize a country for crowd violence? While the Tartan Army is known for its good behavior as well as its vocal support, Scotland has not been without its own problems with crowd violence. (Come on, Chick. If you’re going to hit below the belt, at least keep it relevant.)

Thankfully, Chick actually started to make sense later in his smear campai… I mean column:

Let us establish something here. If our young guns collapse at the final hurdle, if the Italians accomplish their mission, if there are tears before bedtime then still this team that Walter Smith spawned and Alex McLeish brought up deserve a standing ovation.

They merit an honours degree in overachieving because they have skipped up mountains when we all thought they would disappear down the pothole of Group B of the European Championship qualifying stages.

(Chick, did you just say something that actually makes sense?) Well, at least we can agree on that. As I said earlier, if Scotland doesn’t come away with the result they’re after, they’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. (Chick, you should still lay off the crazy pills regardless of the result though. Mmkay?)

In my cold moments of logic, when I sit and study the respective squads, when I am honest about those Italians and their blasted ability to do what they have to do and the seemingly forgotten fact that they are champions of the world, then I am realistic. Scotland won’t win.

(Your “cold moments of logic?” I forget… who was Lex Luther, again?) You won’t catch me saying that “Scotland won’t win,” unless of course Marty McFly is kind enough to bring me a sports almanac from the future. (Italy did, after all, allow a carpenter to score on them at Faroe Islands.) Anything’s possible, and the result is largely dependant on which Azzurri squad shows up. Will it be the one that painfully eeked by Faroe Islands, or will it be the one that hung in there – and eventually prevailed (in epic fashion) against an outstanding German squad?