You could see the screen from everywhere. Ribalta is an admittedly narrow space, a sliver of Naples cut into a facade on 12th Street. Parties of five or more sat on long tables down the middle. Regulars camped along the bar, while Sebastian, the bartender, served a steady flow of aperitivos, peronis and spritzes. Coca-Cola – always served in a glass bottle with an appropriately tall tumbler as a compliment – also flew into the crowd by the dozens. A man sat at the bar trying to convince anyone who would listen to buy a drink he had invented – and was trying to get off the ground. <\/p>\n
Twenty minutes before kick-off, the flag went up. An old man, donning a sleek man-bun and clad in a kappa Italy jacket, battled through the crowd to pin iltricolore on the wall. Italian pop music blared around him. <\/p>\n
Fifteen minutes before kick off, people took to simply moving chairs. The staff, used to this kind of thing, reacted in turn. Drinks, food, bread, tap water: the stream never stopped. The jerseys were also here. Italian soccer, admittedly, has suffered a fallow spell of late. Current stars – as is the case with the team, in truth – were on short supply. Yet, the heads of old were well reflected: Andrea Pirlo, Francesco Totti, and Gigi Buffon. There were also stark reminders that, for all of Italy\u2019s World Cup weaknesses of late, this is still a side that won a European championship less than five years ago. So, when Giorgio Chiellini – captain of that team – appeared on the TV broadcast, the noise level increased markedly.<\/p>\n
And then, silence. Everyone rose. The MC, who had been breaking out a series of Italian tunes as the place filled up, instructed the patrons to rise for the Italian National anthem:<\/p>\n
Stringiamoci a coorte!<\/p>\n
Siam pronti alla morte.<\/p>\n
Siam pronti alla morte,<\/p>\n
L’Italia chiam\u00f2.<\/p>\n
Stringiamoci a coorte!<\/p>\n
Patrons sang every word and shouted in unison after. The MC tried to capitalize on the patriotism of it all, encouraging patrons to clap, sing, and dance. <\/p>\n
But when the game started, the tension was clear. Italian soccer is nervous. It is felt at every level. The football federation moved the semifinal of their qualifier from San Siro – the usual haunt for games of such magnitude – to the much smaller Bergamo, such was the expected pressure of the crowd. <\/p>\n
That was just as clear here. Italy were sloppy early on. A few passes were missed. Nicolo Barella – their elite center midfielder – gave the ball away. The patrons groaned. Gianluigi Donnarumma blasted a ball out of play. A few choice words were yelled. And when Bosnia and Herzegovina ventured forward, the place fell silent. It stayed that way as Italy struggled for a foothold. Pizzas were shuffled by waiters in near silence. <\/p>\n
There was a screech of anxiety from one patron when Bosnia\u2019s Edin Dzeko swiveled and shot – followed by a few nervous chuckles. <\/p>\n
And when Italy scored, the place exploded. It was a gift, really. The Bosnian goalie passed to the feet of Barella, who squared to Moise Kean. The striker whipped it into the top corner and wheeled away in delight. New York celebrated with him. The music came on. The jumping began. Waiters tapped bottles together. Even the bartender, so focused on serving drink after drink, allowed himself a moment of celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You could see the screen from everywhere. Ribalta is an admittedly narrow space, a sliver of Naples cut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[391,61,63,392,5,62],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-analysis","tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina-vs-italy","tag-features","tag-italy","tag-world-cup-qualification-uefa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}