Jubilation in Italy

ROME: Italy’s jubilant World Cup winners arrived back home with the coveted trophy yesterday amid a welter of excitement in Rome as fans gave them an emotional reception on the streets of the capital.

The team’s plane touched down at a military airbase outside Rome shortly before an official parade through the capital’s historic centre culminated in a giant party at the ancient Circus Maximus. After arriving back, the players made their way in an open-topped bus to the city centre where they were met, after a long delay caused by eager fans blocking the roads, by Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

“With all Italians, I thank you,” said Prodi after hoisting the World Cup trophy into the air alongside captain Fabio Cannavaro. “All Italians love you... You have given us the joy of winning thanks to a game based on teamwork and you have shown young people how results are gained through effort, sweat and hard work right to the end, right up until penalties.

“You have given the Italian championship, in the midst of a serious crisis, the dignity it deserves. You have shown a too often divided country a motive to unite.” Earlier, skipper Cannavaro held the trophy aloft as the plane doors opened, raising huge cheers from a few hundred fans at the base. Italy’s air force acrobatic team, trailing smoke, painted the sky in the green, white and red colours of the national flag during repeated fly-pasts.

The team and officials were immediately whisked off supposedly to an official reception hosted by Prodi, but the delay caused the Prime Minister to seek out and join the team amid the madness of joyous fans, postponing the reception for later. Under suffocating heat, emergency services handed out water to the crowds. While waiting for the Italian team to arrive, a hearse carrying a coffin draped in the French flag circled the Circus Maximus.

A notice proclaiming the death of French football was also distributed among Italian fans. “After 90 minutes of agony, the useless existence of the little cocks was ended,” it said.