Future's Nostalgia

"The World Cup will not miss us, we will miss the World Cup". This is the cruel and most descriptive thing that I read this morning among all the angry Facebook posts, the newspapers and the chats in the bar while Andre was serving my coffee. It's a matter of everyday life and rituals because every kid and every grandma in Italy know that every four years there will be that thing that brings us together to watch a football game in a bar or someone house, cheering and crying.

Personally, I will miss my rituals. I will desperately miss that jingle of the beer bottles while I walk to the house that will host my anxiety throughout the game. I will miss the not-so-warm pizza with the mozzarella that is getting hard, because we order it too late, and everybody does so during the Nazionale's game so pizzerie are busy.  I will miss that moment of pure joy when the speedy boy rings the bell, and the moment right after that sense of empathy for the pizzaboy that instead of watching the game with his family or friends is working, while the rest of the country doesn't. I will miss my own personal nostalgia ritual: listening to all the intros by Fabio Caressa from the German World Cup. I know, they are cheap, but I was fourteen in 2006 and listen to them that "gladiator words" take me back to that summer. My lips are still able to follow every word of it.

I will miss that inner feeling of unity that I experience while watching Italy. Me - a Lazio supporter - always used to be in minority, not able to accept the fact that we are all on the same side, at least for those 90 minutes. I will miss that feeling of pure hope when you're still 0 0, and even if you perfectly know that we are going to lose a part of me still strongly believe that a miracle can happen, and it is a feeling impossible to suffocate.

There will be time to understand whose fault is this, who is the enemy, the bad and the good guys. Today I don't care, I'm just deeply sad, the same nostalgic vibe when you watch a game from the past and you desperately wanna be in there.