Where it all began

The Italian national football team defeated Israel just a few hours ago in a dramatic match, with a final score of 5-4. The game was part of the European qualification groups for the upcoming World Cup, which will be held in the United States, but despite six points from two matches earned by the Azzurri under their new head coach Gennaro Gattuso, securing a spot in the tournament remains a distant dream.

If you are wondering how our football system, which dominated Europe and the world in the last two decades of the 20th century, has declined to the point of missing two (and likely three) consecutive World Cups and struggling (often losing) against teams of much lower stature such as Switzerland, Norway, Ukraine, and Israel, you should know that there is a precise date when the first snowball—now an unstoppable avalanche—began rolling downhill: April 26, 1998.

On that day, at the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin (now transformed into the modern Allianz Stadium), the match between Juventus and Inter was scheduled, valid for the fourth-to-last round of the championship, with the two teams separated by just one point in favor of the Bianconeri.

_{Juventus, 1997-98 Italian champions. Public domain image}

The home team played better and immediately took control of the match, going ahead thanks to Alessandro Del Piero after about twenty minutes. Inter attempted to react but failed to break through, until, just over fifteen minutes from the end, an incident occurred that would go down in history.

Brazilian striker Ronaldo entered the box from the left, pushed the ball forward, and collided with Juventus defender Mark Iuliano, falling to the ground dramatically. Referee Ceccarini, just a few steps away, judged it a normal coming together and allowed play to continue; shortly after, in the opposite penalty area, Del Piero was fouled, and this time the referee awarded a penalty (which was later missed) to Juventus.

All hell broke loose. Inter players surrounded Ceccarini, coaches and officials stormed onto the pitch, and president Massimo Moratti left the stands in protest: for them, the earlier contact between Iuliano and Ronaldo was a clear penalty, seen as the sole reason for the collapse of all their title hopes.

_{Massimo Moratti, BomberTuccio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

However, despite this story becoming a symbol of a "stolen" title due to relentless narrative repetition, at the time those protests appeared at the very least exaggerated.

The two commentators of the match, Massimo Marianella and former referee Massimo Chiesa, after reviewing several replays, judged the contact as not punishable, and the same opinion was consistently expressed by referee Piero Ceccarini in all subsequent interviews, even many years later.

Further evidence that the incident likely served to fuel a premeditated controversy by those unwilling to accept finishing second lies in the fact that similar contacts in later years were almost never penalized with a foul against the defender.

One could debate that refereeing decision—and many others—for hours, but the main issue, never truly addressed in decades of storytelling, is another: even if we assume a foul and a converted penalty for Inter (not guaranteed, considering that about 40% of penalties were missed that season), there is no way to determine that Inter would have won the match or even maintained a draw.

_{Jon Candy, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

Even assuming a draw—at that point the most likely outcome—the gap between the two teams would have remained unchanged, with Juventus still one point ahead. At that point, had Inter won all three remaining matches, the incident might have been considered decisive, but Gigi Simoni’s team failed to go beyond a 0-0 home draw against Piacenza the following week, and even lost 2-1 in Bari in the penultimate round.

Inter finished the season five points behind Juventus (who drew in Bergamo on the final day with the title already secured), and here is the "bitter truth": the Iuliano-Ronaldo incident, standings in hand, turned out to be completely irrelevant, yet it triggered entire seasons of distorted narratives, in which Inter were portrayed as victims of referees to cover up the failures of Moratti and his excessive spending.

Those same narratives, growing season after season, would eventually lead to the creation of Calciopoli, the bomb that triggered the controlled destruction of Italian football. So next time you sit in front of the TV cursing the weakness of our national team or club sides, remember "father" Moratti, the "honest man" who destroyed a perfect machine.

I'm part of ITALYGAME Team

together with:
@girolamomarotta, @sardrt, @mikitaly, @mad-runner, @famigliacurione

👉 VOTE FOR US AS WITNESS👈