Lazio beats Bayern: Italian ideas are stronger than money

This time, the lesson was given by Lazio. It’s the same one that arrived a few months ago from Inter, from Roma, from Fiorentina: the others are rich and strong – rich therefore strong – but we can compete with anyone. Because with money you buy champions, but fortunately football is also something else: tactics, tenacity, humility, application, soul, genius. So it can happen that three Italian teams reach the final in the three cups, while English and Spanish battleships loaded with money are kicked out (then we lost the finals, it’s true, but we were there, present everywhere). And it could also happen that Lazio, managed with wisdom but also with understandable attention to economic accounts, beat the powerful Bayern in a match of extraordinary importance, the first leg of the Champions League round of 16.

merit

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A result obtained with merit, without discussion, and indeed in the end the regret of the Biancocelesti for not having scored another goal is even greater than that of the Bavarians for not having achieved the equaliser. Of course, looking at the names, the forces on the field, it seemed like there shouldn’t have been a match. Let’s just take Bayern’s defence, in the middle: the starter – together with Upamecano – was Kim, the wall of Napoli, the Italian champions, the man whose departure was indicated as decisive for the Azzurri’s crisis in the current season ; on the bench, taking over at the end after the expulsion of the French giant, was De Ligt, snatched from Juve for eighty million. Two departures, those of Kim and De Ligt, which we experienced as inevitable defeats in the face of a club that is too richer than ours: how can we compete with those who come to our house and buy whoever they want, taking them away not from second-tier clubs but to two of our greats, Napoli and Juve?

ideas

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It can, however. Because sometimes ideas arrive where not even money can climb. Lazio had the extraordinary merit of playing a flawless, tactically perfect match, but last night’s feat was born beforehand, from the words of confidence uttered by Sarri and Lotito: Bayern is strong, but they are not unbeatable. Even less so at this moment, while he is going through a period of crisis with few precedents in the last two decades, so much so that only last Saturday he was overwhelmed by Bayer Leverkusen in the clash at the top of the Bundesliga, a defeat which has exacerbated the internal rifts with the coach in the crosshairs. Bayern were a wounded giant, Lazio knew how to take advantage of it. Applause. Let’s be clear, Lazio’s qualification for the quarterfinals remains difficult. Very difficult. But this victory confirms the progressive growth of our poor football.

witness

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And Sarri passes an ideal baton to all the other Italian teams that will be involved in the cups: tonight Milan and Roma, next week Inter and Napoli, then Atalanta and Fiorentina. Because never before has the positive results of each of these teams been as important for all the others as this time: we have the increasingly concrete possibility of finishing in the first two places in the European rankings this season, an objective which would allow us to field five teams away to the next Champions League. If one of ours enjoys this benefit, they will see their prospects change also from an economic point of view. How many times have we said, with a good dose of hypocrisy, that all Italian fans hope for good results from our teams in the cup? We told it, yet we knew that it wasn’t – couldn’t be – really like that: apart from rare exceptions, a Milan fan doesn’t hope for Inter’s successes, and vice versa, nor do Lazio and Roma fans trust in their cousins’ victories. Nope: it’s the rivalry. Snake relatives. Now it’s different. Even in the past, the ranking had an impact on the number of clubs registered in the cups, but it was a count that was valid in the long term, we almost didn’t realize how much and how the results of the individual clubs in Europe had an impact. Now everything is immediate: you win and in May you discover that you have five teams in the Champions League. Now it makes sense that everyone is rooting for everyone, despite the rivalries.