Italy's national pride, battered recently by a string of corruption scandals, has been dramatically resuscitated by their football team's triumphant World Cup campaign.
The Italian flag hung proudly from windows and balconies in hundreds of towns and cities on Tuesday, and youths continued to drive about on scooters with the red, white and green colours attached to them.
The surge of patriotic feeling is also evidenced by the rush to buy anything that has the Italian red, white and green colours emblazoned on it. T-shirts, badges, hats, belts, cigarette lighters are all being snapped up. One of the biggest crowds ever seen in Rome gathered in Circus Maximus, the ancient Roman chariot-racing arena, on Monday night to celebrate with the national squad on its return from Germany. Most estimates put the number at well over a million.
"I'm proud to be Italian today. Every country in the world wanted to win that cup. It's fantastic to think that we have it," said Massimo Tozzi, a 27-year-old Roman who was part of the delirious crowd. As the victorious team rode to the premier's office on an open-top bus, saluting the populace like ancient Roman generals returning from war, joyful fans waved Italian flags and shouted "Italia! Italia!"
"Thanks for giving Italy a reason for unity, a reason to feel the same pride and the same sense of belonging," Romano Prodi said when they finally arrived. During the month of the German World Cup, street hawkers selling 'Italy' products raked in some 5 million euros, according to associations representing them. Over the same period the nation spent only half as much on pizza and beer.
"This victory is good for the nation," Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said in a press interview on Tuesday. "Look at the way the flag has been rediscovered. This is very important".
In the run-up to the World Cup final, shopkeepers were having to dig out old flags from their storerooms to satisfy the apparently infinite demand for the 'tricolore'. Napolitano said the national pride unleashed by soccer was helping the country recover "serenity", an implicit reference to the recent match-fixing scandal, but also to other scandals that have hit the world of business and finance.
The triumphant Italy players, who are all idols for their compatriots now, expressed amazement on Tuesday over the scale of the passion they saw at the Circus Maximus celebrations. "It was incredible. I never expected all those people,"
Italy striker Luca Toni said.
Team coach Marcello Lippi also appeared dazed by the reception he and his squad had been given and unable to believe that an estimated two million people had taken part in the festivities.
"It was great to see so many young people," he said. "Clearly for this generation it was the first time they had felt such joy".
