Being right: the essential Italian trait also applies to soccer
We’re not just being modest when we say that we Italians are always right. (Well, usually.) It’s true of our views on the world, the love lives of our friends, when arguing a case in business meetings, and of course, when it comes to football, we’re always on the ball.
But being right all the time can put a lot of pressure on someone. It’s highly embarrassing when faced with a question about soccer we don’t know the answer to. Worse still is to express an opinion or state a fact that is completely wrong. That would never do – Italian pride is a powerful thing. Thankfully, there are a couple of life-savers that can quickly gives us everything we need to maintain our expert status and increase our odds of being correct.
For almost 120 years, we’ve relied on the authority and expertise of journalists writing for La Gazzetta dello Sport. Italy’s best selling sports newspaper, it’s pink pages cover all the major sports news in great detail, giving us the facts, strategies and analysis we need to form our own views and become experts in soccer. Of course, there’s a big difference in reading about a game and seeing it for yourself, so the TV also fills us in. For an hour before every major game, and two hours after, we can watch the experts debate all the action and replay key moments with their analysis. Keeping up with such in-depth coverage may be time-consuming, but for the glorious prize of ‘being right’ it’s worth every minute of research.
But being right all the time can put a lot of pressure on someone. It’s highly embarrassing when faced with a question about soccer we don’t know the answer to. Worse still is to express an opinion or state a fact that is completely wrong. That would never do – Italian pride is a powerful thing. Thankfully, there are a couple of life-savers that can quickly gives us everything we need to maintain our expert status and increase our odds of being correct.
For almost 120 years, we’ve relied on the authority and expertise of journalists writing for La Gazzetta dello Sport. Italy’s best selling sports newspaper, it’s pink pages cover all the major sports news in great detail, giving us the facts, strategies and analysis we need to form our own views and become experts in soccer. Of course, there’s a big difference in reading about a game and seeing it for yourself, so the TV also fills us in. For an hour before every major game, and two hours after, we can watch the experts debate all the action and replay key moments with their analysis. Keeping up with such in-depth coverage may be time-consuming, but for the glorious prize of ‘being right’ it’s worth every minute of research.