‘A people of saints, poets and defenders’

BRING on the Martians! Maybe it’s not the most catchy football chant for next season, but Il Messaggero captured perfectly the mood of delirium that swept across Italy at around 11.30 on Tuesday night.

“There are some days that never end,” wrote Enrico Maida amid the bedlam, “and July 4 — a date of historic relevance for all humanity — was one such for Italian football”.

All the memories of that other semi-final, in 1970, came flooding back: the extra time “unforgettable, just as it was 36 years ago”; Franz Beckenbauer, now as then seemingly unperturbed; the shots that cannoned against post and crossbar “as if fate had decided to compensate the Germans for all those times we’ve beaten them”.