A genial italian

I hate Italians from the core of my heart. And when I do start falling in love with them, they end up doing some Materazzish things to my idols and this developing Italian honeymoon is nipped in the bud.

But to every prevailing rule there has to be an exception, and few exceptions come as royally as Fabio Cannavaro . A genial defender for Azury. did I say genial??, a genial Italian and that too a defender, aren’t Italians defenders supposed to be mean, baying for your blood if you happen to be rival forward venturing into the much prohibited goal arena waltzing your way through, weaning away to look for that much denied goal and ah suddenly brought down by one of those mean somber sinister eyed men in blue. I know a genial Italian defender is a double oxymoron (ah I just invented a word courtesy Italians), but then if someone could grab that flattering tag it has to Fabio, the skipper of Italian hopes who proved rule of 12 –24 continues for Italians(Italian made it to the finals of 1970 and 1994 world cup where they find samba dancers in yellow-greens too hot to handle and in 1982 and 2006 they were crowned winners at the expense of Germans and French – so we all superstitious people know Italians are very much in chance after 2 WC fiascos, don’t expect much of them at south africa-2010 and 2014.They ll be back in hunt in 2018 if this numerology has to be believed )

Fabio failed to win golden ball in Germany, blame it on that French sorcerer who decided world has to know that even fast paced and seemingly rough game of soccer can mesmerize you as long as maestro was in mood for ballerina. For every equally brilliant but rogue Deco/Ruyben (remember Portugal pitted against Holland and referee’s suddenly realizing red is the best known color to him), there has to be a maestro to bring sanity to game. Maestro took some sheen off neat work Fabio displayed throughout a world cup known for bellicose defenders who managed to escape red card happy hawk eyed referees. But Fabio was an exception, I don’t remember a single tackle of his which could have been deemed illegal, what he did was neat, very much acceptable in football parlance and yet bravo few (if any) could head their way past him. Klose who laid Argentina low other day, learnt it hard way, mate Fabio aint no Ayala , unbreachable wall he is, be content to play it for while but never even think of shooting it past keeper of our fortunes Buffoon he must have been told in no uncertain terms. “Ah sending it past Buffoon, mate let him at least collect the ball for a while, I m finding it difficult to send it to him” must have been Klose’ retort if he was witty enough.

It was good to see therefore Fabio collecting Europe’s best footballer award and aha icing on that creamy cake was “FIFA footballer of the year” award last week. Fabio deserves his place under the sun; let him soak it up, he warrants all accolades showered on him. After all not all Italians are sinister eyed mean men and some of them can be genial though blocking ways of many of your favorites (Klose, Crespo, Rooney, Polski ,Henry whoever they are..) and ah rare breed of theirs which gets rarer every day may has some titans among them who may pose with that beautiful award in hand chortling for all those hungry camera clicking photographers .