Vittorio Sermonti
Dov'è la Vittoria?

After experiencing the most bitter worldwide disappointment of my life, the last time the Azzurri were knocked out in the first round was in 1974, and I was too young to notice, I had, for a few weeks, a profound aversion to the round object and the world, alas increasingly worse, that surrounds it. Then, a few days ago, idly glancing towards the higher shelves of the library, I was struck by the blue spine (what other color could it be?) of a little book that I suppose was given to me a quarter of a century ago, after the Spanish World Cup concluded, and which I devoured several times over the years, making me an avid scholar of that epic.

This is 'Dov'è la Vittoria?' compiled by the famous Dante scholar (not dentist) Vittorio Sermonti in 1983. The book presents day by day, from June 1, 1982 – the date the Azzurri team gathered in Rome before leaving for Spain, to July 12, the day after the final – a delightful, amused, and inspired gleaning from the newspapers of the time, the stories, essays, report cards, and notes of which are skillfully compared, integrating with each other into a unified narrative that follows the Azzurri's world adventure from the darkness of Vigo to the shining light of Barcelona and Madrid.

Describing it this way might make it seem like a small thing, but the author is not an average Biscardi, and his undeniable literary talents come into play and are exalted in weaving together the most disparate "nullas" that crowded the newspaper pages (the selection spans about thirty dailies and the legendary Guerin Sportivo) during those days. It should also be added that twenty-five years ago, not only scribblers wrote about sports: from Brera to Caminiti, the prose was fluid and imaginative, and distinguished writers like Mario Soldati and Giovanni Arpino were engaged in recounting the World Cup for the magazines they collaborated with.

What emerges is a compilation that tells about the Italy that was (and in its worst part, still is) and the Italians, quoting literally "of their (sometimes) brazen attitude towards success and their (often) incredible lust for defeat or perhaps just for whining."

Highly recommended for anyone who thinks that sometimes one can bring out something more and better than just bitter juice from the football turnip.