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Despite the Criticism, Italy’s Act Continues

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Times Staff Writer

It is like an unfolding opera, this march of Italy’s across the World Cup landscape. Verdi or Puccini could have made something of it. All that is needed now is for Luciano Pavarotti to make his entrance.

When the curtain rose, it was to a wailing of voices and a wringing of hands as the biggest soccer scandal in decades broke across the Italian peninsula.

Clubs, players and coaches all the way from Turin and Milan to Florence and Rome were caught up in the various match-fixing and referee-bribing investigations that were launched.

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Against this backdrop, Italy Coach Marcello Lippi and his players left for Germany, insisting that the alleged shenanigans of Juventus and other top Serie A clubs would have no bearing on their fortunes.

“Away from the field, they might give some attention to other things, but on the field their mental approach to work has been exceptional, fantastic,” Lippi said of his players.

Having given his own input to investigators, Lippi also took a swing at those who had rushed to judgment.

“We live in a country where if you speak to the authorities as a ‘person informed of the facts,’ then you are treated as though you are under investigation,” he said. “If you are put under investigation, then you are treated as though you have been condemned.

“We will see who has something to repent for and who doesn’t.”

Now, the Azzurri have reached the semifinals and they play World Cup host Germany on Tuesday night in Dortmund. For the Italians, that might be the final act or it might simply be a prelude to the finale. Either way, there have been all sorts of twists and turns in the plot, some comic, some tragic.

Opera is never straightforward.

There was, for instance, the almost farcical interlude involving Argentine-born midfielder Mauro Camoranesi, who was asked after Italy’s 2-0 opening win over Ghana why he had not sung the national anthem.

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“I don’t even sing my own national anthem,” Camoranesi replied, sparking a bit of an outcry.

Goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, meanwhile, was still fielding questions about the scandal back home.

“In the midst of all this, it is clear that we are playing for Italy,” he said. “We are sweating, sacrificing, running and earning our money for Italy. It is a waste of time to always look for problems, to make war or fratricide. If we win, then we are all happy.

“There is a very positive atmosphere in the team -- there is a lot of belief and the feeling that something strong has been born.”

More comedy, but not much laughter, arrived with the own goal scored by defender Cristian Zaccardo in a 1-1 tie with the U.S. It is the only goal Italy has given up, but it caused fellow defender and team captain Fabio Cannavaro to castigate his teammates.

“We have to start being more Italian, more cynical,” he said. “The secret to going a long way in the tournament is to revert back to a more typically Italian defensive approach. Our formation is an attacking one, but we mustn’t forget how to defend.”

The team was hailed for defeating the Czech Republic, 2-0, in its final first-round match. But in the second round, a 1-0 victory over Australia on a dubious last-minute penalty kick brought international criticism of Italy’s play.

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The Azzurri did not suffer it silently.

“If everyone is attacking us, then it means they are afraid of us,” defender Alessandro Nesta said. “We are indifferent to all this stuff. The words fly away with the wind. By now it has become a tradition to attack Italian football and it seems to be in fashion.

“We only have one task. If you win, then the rest -- being popular -- will follow.”

With Germany also moving smoothly through the tournament and a possible clash looming, the German media added their own, somewhat clumsy, contribution to the bubbling stew.

Earlier in the tournament, when Italy had perhaps looked vulnerable, one German newspaper published a cartoon of a car flying a celebratory flag out the window -- except that the flag was white.

When Italy no longer looked likely to surrender meekly, the jibes became uglier.

The German weekly Der Spiegel published a supposedly satirical column on its website titled “Oiled Up and Greasy” in which Italians were referred to as “parasitical forms of life” and “mama’s boys.”

Der Spiegel withdrew the column and apologized, but the damage had been done.

Said Nesta: “They criticize us for how we are, but then they want to dress and eat like us. There is a bit of envy.”

The opera took a tragic turn Tuesday, when former Italy national team player Gianluca Pessotto tumbled out a third-floor window at the Juventus team’s headquarters in Turin. He survived but suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries and was in a drug-induced coma at a hospital.

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Pessotto, 35, had been holding rosary beads when he fell, and police called it an apparent suicide attempt. He had been appointed Juventus’ sporting director after the club’s entire board resigned in the wake of the match-fixing scandal that is centered on the Turin team.

The Italian players were stunned by the development. Two of them, Alessandro Del Piero and Gianluca Zambrotta, and former player and now assistant coach Ciro Ferrara flew back to Italy to visit Pessotto.

Two days later, the corruption tribunal opened in Rome, but was quickly adjourned until today. Four clubs and 26 officials are on trial.

It is a measure of Italy’s composure and strength that the team responded to all this with a 3-0 quarterfinal victory Friday night over Ukraine, when Luca Toni scored twice and Zambrotta once.

After the match, the players unfurled an Italian flag bearing the words: “Pessottino we are with you” as a tribute to Pessotto, who played 22 times for Italy.

Now, the World Cup opera has reached its penultimate act with a semifinal between two three-time champions.

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Has Lippi been lucky to have gotten this far? The coach rejected the notion.

“We had Francesco Totti ruled out for three months with injury,” he said, “then Zambrotta, Gattuso and Nesta all got injured. On top of that, we have to deal with the unprecedented mess happening in Italy.

“Yeah, you can say I have been real lucky.”

Having overcome so much in the last few weeks, the Italian camp is confident. The Sunday final in Berlin is only 90 minutes away.

“[The Germans] were afraid of us before, and maybe after a 3-0 win over Ukraine they will be more afraid,” Toni said. “They are an organized and tough side, but we are organized and tough too.”

The opera’s final acts are about to be written.

“Nothing is impossible,” Lippi said.

*

GERMANY VS. ITALY

Tuesday at Dortmund

Noon PDT, ESPN and Channel 34

*

FRANCE VS. PORTUGAL

Wednesday at Munich

Noon PDT, ESPN and Channel 34

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