What’s unique about an Italian soccer training camp? Let’s find out. They are the 2006 World Cup Champions so you can’t really knock them. They do play tough and relentless defense but do seem to want to dive or act a bit too much, trying to draw other players in and get fouls. Check out this funny video of an “Italian soccer training camp”. You have to say though that the Italians do dive with a certain style and flair that makes it an art!
In the Euro 2020 match versus Belgium, Ciro Immobile recovered from a dive and fake injury after Italy scored. I don’t know, there is a place for deception in football. I almost appreciate some of the theatrics of the game, but too many dives or fake injuries only slows the game down.
See an Italian soccer training camp in the video below.
From Fox Soccer on the art of the dive and other antics in Italian football:
And where does this mastery develop? Growing up, explains now good friend, the font of Italian football knowledge, Luca. You can’t escape it, at every level in Italy from amateur to Serie A. Generation to generation it is passed, like a holy grail for the dark arts.
And for those not raised this way, every dying stage of a big Italian win is an exercise in psychoanalysis.
We have become so conditioned to seeing the antics, yet we still fall for the antics, and if the antics benefit the opposition, we get angry at the antics. We become virtuous, and we ridicule those who commit what we view as football sin.
I’m guessing this is where AC Milan forward Girardino learned how to dive.
