I was eleven years old and I had grown up with the idea that Italy was a bit of a second-class nation.
It was dangerous to travel because of bombs in the stations, planes falling out of the sky with no reasons and every now and then shooting in big cities where someone were killed "by mistake".
The World Cup in Spain in 1982 began with the same tirade: the team is weak, we are not able to organize ourselves, the players are the wrong ones and so on.
Then there was the game against Argentina and Brazil: the revenge.
July 11, 1982 was a hot day, someone had printed funeral posters reporting the death of "Germany" after 90 minutes of agony for fun and sold them to make some money.
And then the game, the "Mivar" 24-inch cathode ray tube television with that blue "PAL" that extended a little beyond the shirt, just blurred, of the footballers, my grandfather with the tank top and shorts near the balcony and me behind the table three meters away from the TV, because closer there were "radiation".
The missed penalty and the fear of returning to the reality of a country where "nothing works".
But no, everything went smoothly, including the procession of cars with horns honking hysterically, the piaggio Ape with three children waving green, white and red t-shirts while standing in the rear body in defiance of the most elementary safety regulations and the fiat 500 with sunroof populated by at least six people who leaned out waving improbable drapes of indecipherable fabric.
Finally there was something I could be proud of, I also felt a bit like a World Champion and my idol was him: "Dino Zoff". Then, unfortunately, I grew up.
English (UK) 
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