In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment

[sasguru]

Ah, he got us the scudetto 2000-2001 and second for two more times so can't complain about him really. He is a bit authoritarian though, might not be a good coach for superstars but you are lucky because you don't have any.

I don't think English players are crap. As everyone notices they play well for their clubs e.g. Gerard was outstanding recently in a good Euro team. I think its a weakness of leadership and I hope this guy can sort it.
If we are going to get a foreign manager I suppose it's best to go Italian - the most succesful European country for the WC in Europe.
I'm just not convinced the English aggressive style will suit an Italian "catennachio" manager.
Time will tell

[Francko]

Fair enough, I love Rome too.

So Francko, now we have an Italian manager, what do you reckon of him? I dont follow Euro football so I dont know what he's like. If he tries to do the "catennachio" to England it wont work. I think it will end in tears.

Ah, he got us the scudetto 2000-2001 and second for two more times so can't complain about him really. He is a bit authoritarian though, might not be a good coach for superstars but you are lucky because you don't have any.

[sasguru]

Fair enough, I love Rome too.

So Francko, now we have an Italian manager, what do you reckon of him? I dont follow Euro football so I dont know what he's like. If he tries to do the "catennachio" to England it wont work. I think it will end in tears.

[Francko]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/wo...rssnyt&emc=rss

In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment


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By IAN FISHER
Published: December 13, 2007

ROME — All the world loves Italy because it is old but still glamorous. Because it eats and drinks well but is rarely fat or drunk. Because it is the place in a hyper-regulated Europe where people still debate with perfect intelligence what, really, the red in a stoplight might mean.


A HOWL FOR ITALY Beppe Grillo, a comic and blogger who has given voice to Italy’s foul mood, prepared for a recent performance in Novarra. More Photos

But these days, for all the outside adoration and all of its innate strengths, Italy seems not to love itself. The word here is “malessere,” or “malaise”; it implies a collective funk — economic, political and social — summed up in a recent poll: Italians, despite their claim to have mastered the art of living, say they are the least happy people in Western Europe.

“It’s a country that has lost a little of its will for the future,” said Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome and a possible future center-left prime minister. “There is more fear than hope.”

The problems are, for the most part, not new — and that is the problem. They have simply caught up to Italy over many years, and no one seems clear on how change can come — or if it is possible anymore at all.

Italy has charted its own way of belonging to Europe, struggling as few other countries do with fractured politics, uneven growth, organized crime and a tenuous sense of nationhood.

But frustration is rising that these old weaknesses are still no better, and in some cases they are worse, as the world outside outpaces the country. In 1987, Italy celebrated its economic parity with Britain. Now Spain, which joined the European Union only a year earlier, may soon overtake it, and Italy has fallen behind Britain.

Italy’s low-tech way of life may enthrall tourists, but Internet use and commerce here are among the lowest in Europe, as are wages, foreign investment and growth. Pensions, public debt and the cost of government are among the highest.

The latest numbers show a nation older and poorer — to the point that Italy’s top bishop has proposed a major expansion of food packages for the poor.

Worse, worry is growing that Italy’s strengths are degrading into weaknesses. Small and medium-size businesses, long the nation’s family-run backbone, are struggling in a globalized economy, particularly with low-wage competition from China.

Doubt clouds the family itself: 70 percent of Italians between 20 and 30 still live at home, condemning the young to an extended and underproductive adolescence. Many of the brightest, like the poorest a century ago, leave Italy (ahemm, that's very true).

The stakes have risen so high that Ronald P. Spogli, the American ambassador and someone with 40 years of experience with Italy, warns that it risks a diminished international role and relationship with Washington. America’s best friends, he notes, are its business partners — and Italy, comparatively, is not high among them. Bureaucracy and unclear rules kept United States investment in Italy in 2004 to $16.9 billion. The figure for Spain was $49.3 billion.

“They need to sever the ivy that has grown up around this fantastic 2,500-year-old tree that is threatening to kill the tree,” Mr. Spogli said.

But interviews with possible prime ministers, businesspeople, academics, economists and other Italians suggest that the largest reason for this malaise seems to be the feeling that there is little hope that the ivy can be cut, and that is making Italians both sad and angry.

An Angry Message

“Basta! Basta! Basta!” Beppe Grillo, a 59-year-old comic and blogger with swooping gray hair, howled in an interview. The word means “enough,” and he repeated it to make his point to Italy’s political class clear.

In recent months, Mr. Grillo has become the defining personification of Italy’s foul mood. On Sept. 8, he gave that mood a loud voice when he called for a day of rage, to scream across Piazza Maggiore in Bologna an obscenity politely translated as “Take a hike!”

A few thousand people were expected. But 50,000 jammed into the piazza, and 250,000 signed a petition for changes like term limits and the direct election of lawmakers. (Voters now cast their ballots for parties, which then choose who serves in Parliament, without the voters’ consent.)

His message was enough inaction and excess (Italian lawmakers are the best paid in Europe, driven around by the Continent’s largest fleet of chauffeured cars), enough convicted criminals in Parliament (there are 24), enough of the same, tired old faces.

“The whole kettle of fish stinks to high heaven!” he yelled. “The stench rises from the sewers and swirls around and you can’t cope.”

Mr. Grillo leans to the political left, but he spares neither side in his sold-out shows and popular blog. The problem, he said, is the system itself.


Peter Kiefer contributed reporting from Rome and Trieste, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.

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