I'm a die-hard national Italian football fan. It's just part of the whole package when you grow up here. But while football in Italy has always been about gathering around a table for food and family-time, it seems like the game's image is slowly fading.
But not just here in Italy. Everywhere. I'm not just talking about England and the way the world watched as fans stormed Wembley, trashed the streets and then proceeded to blame the colour of players' skin for the loss against Italy on Sunday. It's more than that.
To a certain extent, we're all to blame for the way players and tournaments are glorified today. Even those who don't know the names of players, let alone the rules of the game, get sucked into international championships. Like me, if you're brought up in a country that is quite patriotic, you're made to believe your country has a chance at going home with a cup every two years.
But while here football runs in everyone's blood — it's literally played in every park and every beach on this peninsula — that's not the case for every country. These leagues are owned by people with a lot of money, and we're all guilty of watching them, of paying the €500+ stadium tickets, and joining the millions watching via television. And somehow, as more and more people join in with the hype of football, these leagues get more glorified, more expensive, and the players get paid more.
Don't get me wrong, some of these players are actually taking their money to places beyond the pitch. The English team is a prime example. But when they lose, fans are blaming this effort to address issues like racism and poverty for the reason why they can't get beyond a final.
And as someone on the winning side this time, I know this might sound biased. But when are we going to understand that as our idols, and as people we support through every winning game — we can't just turn on them the minute they have failure slap them in the face. Football has become more than just a game, and in some ways that's not a good thing. Sometimes us fans take it too much to heart, and we take it out on the people we love.
Domestic abuse, for example, unfortunately goes up when losses like this occur.
And then, in other cases, football going outside the pitch is a good thing. Footballers are one of the highest paid professions in the world, and they have A LOT of influence on the men (and women but mostly men) of this planet. They can use their power to stand up for the things they believe in, for the values that a lot of people still need to make important, and maybe — if fans actually respected them as human beings and not just ways to win bets — one day football will not longer be just 22 individuals kicking a ball around towards a net.
Maybe one day, it'll be a vehicle for change.