Milan - The explosion of joy that followed the crucial spot kick converted by Fabio Grosso could still be heard Monday by the Italian fans who spent the night celebrating the Azzurri's triumph at the World Cup.
Italian soccer fans celebrate Italy's victory in the final game of the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Zurich, Switzerland, late Sunday,09 July, 2006. Italy beat France in the penalty shootouts and was crowned World Champion in the final game in Berlin. EPA/WALTER BIERI
An audio file on the website Repubblica.it made available the shouts, horns and firecrackers recorded from a window in Rome seconds after the ball hit the net behind French keeper Fabien Barthez, giving a Italy a 6-4 penalty-shoot-out win and their fourth World Cup.
For fans without access to the web, there was plenty of printed material to recall the emotions lived the night before watching the game on television or on the many giants screens mounted in thousands of town squares.
Commentator Vittorio Zucconi headlined his piece, 'The most beautiful revenge,' a clear reference to the shoot-out elimination that Italy suffered in 1998 against the French squad, who then secured the World Cup.
The shot of David Trezeguet, bouncing off the bar to seal the French debacle, seemed to mirror the similar millimetre mistake by Gigi Di Biagio that doomed Italy to elimination eight years earlier.
'Now, dear French friends, savour this night,' Zucconi wrote. 'Now you know how it felt when Di Biagio hit the bar above Barthez.'
'Bless those penalties, we beat the curse,' read another headline that recalled two other shoot-outs that proved fatal for Italy at the World Cup, the 1990 semifinal against Argentina and the final lost to Brazil four years later.
La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's most read newspaper, opened with a hint of incredulity, titling, 'It is all true! World champions,' above the picture of captain Fabio Cannavaro lifting the cup, and an article comparing coach Marcello Lippi to his predecessor Enzo Bearzot, who won Italy's third cup in 1982.
The piece, by editor in chief Carlo Verdelli, conceded that 'France, probably, did not deserve to lose, but Italy did not deserve to be mocked again by fate one millimetre from the finish line.
'This World Cup taught us many simple things. For instance, that football is a team sport, and that 11 motivated and well assembled men are worth more than 11 stars.'
Verdelli, like many others, reserved plenty of compliments for Lippi, along with ruthless lines about his character.
'He is not nice, although he tries. He is not diplomatic, and he does not even try it,' Verdelli said, 'but he managed something which is rare, not only in sport.
'He took a group of professionals bruised by a grueling season and by the hard blows (from Italy's football scandal) and convinced them that there are moments in life when the general interest prevails on the particular.
'He put them on the pitch according to their real possibilities, leaving theory aside, and gave them just a little affection.'
Lippi received top marks along with keeper Gianlugi Buffon, beaten only by an own goal and a penalty before the shoot-out, and for captain Fabio Cannavaro, who against France played yet another near- flawless game, his 100th with the Azzurri.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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