Italia ’90: Glorious Failure

I

t’s a little odd, I know, but in the build up to the World Cup in the Youtube age, I watch it again, and again, and again: the montage clip of England’s travails at Italia ’90 accompanied by Nessun Dorma* belted out by Luciano Pavarotti. Why do I do it? Is there nothing more to it than having a particular regard for Luciano’s stirring rendition? Do I like watching grown men cry? Am I just weird?**

After a bit of introspection it dawned on me that my fondness for the clip might possibly be because it represents my idealist version of English football: courage; forlorn hope; maybe even glorious failure. Winning is seemingly not part of my English football ideal. Winning requires precision and detachment. Winning can be brutal. Winning lacks nobility. Winning conjures up Gerd Müller ruthlessly poking the ball home from five yards out. After all, if I wanted to wallow and bathe in the one past glory of English football, logically I should be watching clips of the 1966 World Cup triumph. I like to think that it’s not just because the 1966 clips were in the black and white era, making the event just too distant and alien.

But surely I don’t sit down before every England game hoping they will lose? Indeed, I remember getting rather crotchety after England’s 4-1 defeat to Germany in 2010, advocating, as everyone else did, sweeping changes to English football. I recollect moping about with my chums in the Gelsenkirchen campsite in the aftermath of England’s penalty shoot-out defeat to Portugal in 2006. Losing isn’t fun or pleasant.

Yet conceivably it wasn’t the actual defeats that made me cross but rather the clumsy, listless, timid performances of the English players. Had they played with some courage the defeats may not have irked me so. Such a mind-set, if shared by others, could, in part, explain England’s litany of failures. Ultimately, winning might not be the principal objective.  If winning was regarded as being of the utmost importance, then the vested interests blocking some of the well-documented workable proposals which might improve England’s chances***, most of which are in place in Germany, would have been swept aside.  

I cannot help but think that the media hype around Ross Barkley to some extent fits the Nessun Dorma narrative. Barkley plays with courage and honest endeavour, and his brio and surging runs give hope, even if that hope is forlorn. The sense that every fibre of his being is belting out ‘All'alba vincerò! Vincerò! Vincerò! (At dawn I will win! I will win! I will win!)’. Perhaps another dramatic semi-final exit with Barkley taking on Gazza’s mantle is all my compatriots and I really want? 

* I imagine many opera lovers were utterly dismayed by Nessun Dorma becoming the BBC’s Italia 90 World Cup anthem.

** I like to think that my weirdness is of a different form from the leader of the opposition’s. Unlike him I have no problem tucking into a bacon sandwich.

*** I agree with all of them apart from the utterly ill-conceived B team proposal by Greg Dyke which merely serves the interests of the Premiership elite.