What happened in France-Italy makes us think. It is unthinkable that the final phase of an Under-21 European championship does not have the VAR. Thus the nightmares of the past return
Suddenly the Middle Ages. In the era of artificial intelligence and chat bots that write novels, the football sky is torn apart and an ancient past returns, made up of monstrous mistakes and witch hunts. It happens in Romania, land of vampires, at the Cluj Arena. Minute 92′ of Italy-France. The Azzurri, making their debut in the final phase of the Under 21 European Championship, are down 2-1 and are chasing a well-deserved draw. They have already been penalized by an unseen macroscopic handball by Kalu which shielded a conclusion by Pirola, when Bellanova breaks away and dunks with his head. The ball bounces off the ground, hits the post and clears the goal line. It is the goal of a legitimate and sacrosanct 2-2, but the French Lukeba throws the ball out of the goal, perhaps with his arm, and the Dutch referee Lindhout incredibly lets play. And we, who for years have landed in the Var civilization, which may not have given us perfect justice, but freed us from certain epochal blunders, instinctively think of Lissone and all the Irrati of the world.
without logic
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Why doesn’t the referee blow his whistle and put his hand to his ear? Why doesn’t anyone call him on the sideline? Why are they taking so long to give us back Bellanova’s very regular goal? Simply because the use of VAR and goal line technology is not foreseen in this tournament. There is in the second series championships, but in the top continental event for young people: no. In the final phase of the Under 21 European Championship, which showcases the best of youth: no. Kids, who are synonymous with the future and progress, are forced to compete without the help of technology. Why? Where is the hidden meaning? What is the logic, Your Eminences of UEFA? There may be that in suburban leagues, where not everyone can equip stadiums in the same way, for economic reasons, you compete without technology, but in the final phase of an Under-21 European championship there must be. Where is the sense? It would be as if, at the next Wimbledon, tennis players were forced to play only with Borg wooden rackets. Shall we get the chimney sweeps back to the roofs and the steam trains to the tracks? Is this progress?
old and new ghosts
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From the torn sky of Cluj, yesterday we saw the Middle Ages of Byron Moreno who tortured us, unpunished, at the Korean World Cup; we reviewed Belgrade’s Marakana and Sacchi’s Milan, November 1988, when in the repeat of the match in the fog, Valisiljevic, defender of the Red Star, rejected a ball that had entered a meter. And, above all, given that we are dealing with French and Italians, we saw our poor Trap again, coach of Ireland, knocked out of the play-off for qualifying for the 2010 World Cup by a convict coup by Titì Henry who sent the goal comrade Gallas, And so, poor Giuan, couldn’t outwit a world cat. Yesterday we felt like him, robbed by the French, exposed to an injustice, without the rules and those who supervise them being able to defend us. Every time the Var gets an interpretation wrong and ignites the discussion bars, we console ourselves by thinking: “Oh well, but at least blatant injustices like those suffered by Trapattoni we will never see again”. But no. Countermand. Notice to sailors: the football Middle Ages are still among us.
and now?
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In 2009, the Irish, rightly angry, asked for the match to be replayed. Yesterday we too had an instinctive desire: since the Fifa rules did not allow it, the Irish Football Federation thought of suing Fifa and, in the end, was softened by a sort of “loan-donation” of five million of Euro. Our Azzurrini won’t be able to repeat the match and, due to the referee’s error, they are condemned to play an inside-and-out match against Switzerland. The moral of this ugly story? If Ceferin and the UEFA eminences employed the same energies in defending the football product and in the quality of the sporting spectacle that they put into fighting the Super League and defending their revenues, we would live constantly in the future and not among witches.
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