We had taken the precaution of making sure we were labelled Irish. From our shamrock badge on the backpack to the boy's brilliant green Ireland soccer shirt, we made sure we wouldn't be mistaken for some other English-speaking people from the north of Europe. The family didn't want to get branded as nationals of some hostile power during a period as delicate as the 2002 World Cup, in a country as football-mad as Italy.
We were in Pisa, home of the famous Leaning Tower, for the Italy v South Korea match on June 18th. The weather was, in the term of the cod-European weather presenter played by Caroline Aherne in the Fast Show, scorchio. A clear blue sky made the outline of the Leaning Tower stand out to perfection, and the 37-degree made it an impossibility for the panting new arrivals from Ireland's temperate 12-degree zone to climb that crazy thing.
Front-row seat
Anyway, as we sweated in the queues at Pisa's Campo dei Miracoli, the youngest member of the group had started to worry that we might not get a good seat by a big telly to watch the match. So, with well grounded fears that there would be a big demand for tellies at match time, we searched until we found a pleasant bar-restaurant in Piazza Dante, a long rectangular square in the student area of the city. There was a television inside Caffeteria Dantesca, and a large one had been set facing outside, towards the two dozen tables for alfresco eating and drinking. My son nabbed the front-row seat and we were set.
It was a singular experience, sitting there in extreme heat, in a voluble country silenced by tension, except for the near misses of several Italian goals. Overhead, silhouetted against the bright blue sky, swifts dived and chirped as the afternoon wore on. Our café was relatively quiet, but several others in the corners of the square erupted with a Latin "ooo-way-oh!" every time there was a near Italian goal, and with a slightly more downbeat version of the same noise when the Koreans came close.
The males of our family were glued to the TV. The females were more concerned with how rapidly the ice in our drinks was melting (like, instantly) and what that said about the temperatures to which we were exposing our bodies, stored for the rest of the year in the Great Hibernian Fridge. And then there were the perils involved in running the gauntlet into Caffeteria Dantescu to summon, or rather drag, the waiter away from the TV and his mates inside. Unless you took the long way around the back of the terrace, skirting all the tables, and then dashed in by the front door, you ran the risk of obliterating the screen for the alfresco watchers at a critical moment.
Passers-by and the many, many cyclists also faced the same problem. Here was a fascinating psychological profile of contrasting human types. Some people, well aware of the gimlet-like beams on the television, ducked and scurried to avoid interrupting the view. Some cyclists flashed past in Giro d'Italia style, to be gone as quickly as possible. But some types (you know the sort) plodded obliviously by, aware only of their transgression when the Italian equivalent of "Oy" split the air.
Alas, one of the pedal power people zipped past just as Korea was scoring its equalising goal. Mamma mia!
Terse comments
One young Italian man at the table next to us became more and more distraught in the course of the match. He progressed from cheerful banter to occasional terse comments to obsessed silence. Finally, in extra time, he jumped declaring "Voy al Orto Botanico" (I'm off to the botanical gardens) and loped out of sight.
But five minutes later he was back - not a good choice as it turned out for within 60 seconds Ahn Jung Whwan had scored the "golden goal" that silenced the Italian fans.
The change was immediate. Where a tight tense crowd had been clustered around the televisions, all across the square, suddenly there were empty seats, morose waiters clearing tables, and the backs of dozens of people all walking off with a "what World Cup?" air.
"You Irish?" one man found it in his heart to say to us, looking at our son in the green jersey. "Ireland good too. Bad." I think he meant sad. And subsequently, it turned out it was more than sad for Mr Ahn, who was contracted to Perugia in the Italian league and found himself sacked for doing his patriotic duty.
Sense of outrage
Silence might have been the immediate reaction, but it didn't take long for the Italians to recover their volubility, along with their sense of outrage. After Pisa we moved on to Pistoia, a pleasant town with the ancient treasures scattered around it, like so many in Tuscany. There we found the Albergo Firenze (just to confuse things), run by the gentlemanly Signor Walter Manco, a quiet chap speaking excellent English, low-key on all topics except the outrageous perfidy of the world towards the Italian football team.
Had we noticed that the referee of the Italy-South Korea match had refused to shake hands with the Italian team before the match? Did we see this picture in the newspaper showing the referee on the field with his eyes closed? Were we aware that there had been a couple of clear cases of offside against South Korea which were not picked up by the ref? And so on.
We nodded in supposed agreement, and beat a retreat to the - mercifully - air-conditioned hire car, and on to Florence, where the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, and of course the match between England and Brazil, all beckoned.