I only have to see this goal to go flying back in time. I am 12 years old in a little bar in Tuscany watching the game with my Dad and my uncle and a lot of other Italians and hoping that we can please just make it 2-0 soon. I never for a minute imagined quite how spectacularly it would be achieved.
Marco Tardelli was not a man who scored all that often. In our family collective memory, his goal against England at the Euros a couple of years earlier was a special one but otherwise he was not exactly a free-scoring midfielder. He found the net about once in every 13 or 14 games for his country, although a fair bit more for Juventus.
Maybe that is what unlocked the unbridled joy in his celebrations – they were certainly being echoed up and down his homeland after he thumped his shot home. It would be 24 years later that Fabio Grosso produced a pretty impressive copy of Tardelli’s Scream. It could never eclipse the original, though.
Remember it was 44 years since Italy had lifted a World Cup. Whole generations of players had come and gone without getting close. After the Superga disaster in 1949 which robbed us of the Grande Torino side, La Nazionale was laid low and, even when it did recover, there were disasters like the Battle of Santiago in 1962 or North Korea in 1966 to contend with. If it was possible to encapsulate a football daft nation’s joy, relief and desire to be back on top in one lung-bursting run, he came pretty close.
My dad wouldn’t let us relax at 2-0 but it was the goal that definitely dimmed West German hopes of triumph. It didn’t hurt that Tardelli was from a spot less than 20 miles away from my grandfather’s home town. There may have been some throaty Tuscan curses sent to the sky that night.
So to see the goal again is always a happy moment. Everyone is older but the passion remains undimmed. As he reels away in celebration, I was doing the same and thinking how the Azzurri had shown the world that they were more than just defence, the dark arts and Catenaccio. We could be the best on the planet with style, skill and a swerving strike that gave the goalkeeper no chance. I have been lucky enough to see Italy win a couple of World Cups – both times when they were pretty unfancied – and watching this back gives me a mellow glow. And also a sneaky little dream that I might yet live to see them lift the trophy at least one more time.
Giancarlo Rinaldi 