Italy is a favorite to create another masterpiece in Euro 2008, which is being hosted this year — with restrained enthusiasm — by Austria and Switzerland. The Italians, of course, are not a sure thing. They will be challenged by France — whom they defeated in the World Cup final — the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Croatia ... in other words, the usual suspects. (Four years ago, Greece miraculously beat stratospheric odds to win, a performance unlikely to be repeated.) And as is also now usual, the tournament will be followed on televisions not just in Europe, but everywhere from Kunming, China to — well, to Kearney, N.J., actually. And thereby hangs a tale.
"The beauty of [European football]," says Reyna, "is that you have countries that border each other, yet they all have a distinct style." Americans didn't have to go to Europe to be exposed to such variety. It's been on view in the U.S. for 150 years. Whenever the 11th man from any European town emigrated to the States, a football team got organized. Football, the real variety, is an American game, too. Since the 19th century, whether it was Scottish mill hands in New Jersey, Portuguese fishermen in Massachusetts, Ukrainian steel workers in Pennsylvania, Italian masons and Irish sandhogs in New York City, or German brewers and shopkeepers in Missouri, one ethnicity after the next established its community and its football, not necessarily in that order.
With those immigrants came an approach to the game as distinct as their cuisines. Long before I ever watched the European championships — the cable sports network ESPN didn't televise any games in the U.S. until 1996 — I was familiar with Europeans' football. I had been seeing it on the field, first as a kid living in an immigrant-enriched community near Newark, N.J. — where one learned that Portuguese teams have flair and fire, and that a Scotsman has a very broad view as to what constitutes a fair challenge. My European education would continue in the Cosmopolitan Soccer League, in New York City. The CSL began life in 1923 as the German-American Soccer League, but has long served as a melting pot of teams: Blau Weiss Gotchee, Brooklyn Italians, Greek-American Atlas, Polonia NY, Hungaria, FC Bulgaria, NY Albanians, CD Iberia.
When I got to Europe as a journalist (and as a player when my club team toured) it was amusing to see teams replicate what I'd experienced in New York: the way an Irish team plays the offside trap; an Italian midfielder's pass to an outside back that is as predictable as pasta for dinner; the steely play of the Poles contrasted with the passion of the Greeks. New York City's Croatian teams impressed me with their technical approach; the Hungarians, once powerhouses, have faded; the Greeks are defending champions. Sound familiar?
I learned, also, that the farther south in Europe your opponent's roots, the more dazzling the footballing and the hotter the tempers. Get the Italians mad at each other, and you've got a good shot at winning. Get ahead of a Greek team, and get ready for a fightback. Or at least a fight: the Greeks are people with a tremendous culture and history — and they play every game like it's a World Cup — but my experience has been that when a Greek walks onto the pitch his passion for the game is such that he's one whistle away from snapping. It's not surprising that it took a German, Otto Rehhagel, to channel that energy into the kind of disciplined defense that allowed Greece to beat France, the Czech Republic and (speaking of passion) Portugal, to win in 2004. In Greek neighborhoods such as Astoria, in the New York borough of Queens, the joy was explosive.
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