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Vice Blog

Inter-European Hate

As Eddie Izzard once said, the great thing about Europe is that it consists of 30 different countries, with 30 different languages, where no-one has any idea what each other is saying, but where everyone hates each other's guts. This is never more accurate than when soccer is involved. We all know that sport is the garden where the flower of nationalism, stereotype, and pan-european hatred blooms free.

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England-Argentina is simply a reminder of the Falklands war, and in the last European Cup, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Dutch center-forward, got himself in the press after commenting that upcoming match Germany-Holland was "more than just a game, because we can't forget what happened 65 years ago."
In "PC-land USA", and it's newest offspring, "non-PC-but-hey-it's-ok-we're-being-ironic-and-postmodern USA" some things are simply left unsaid. So you might think that things are the same in Europe. You might also think that, due to their alliance in World War II, Italians and Germans get along. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Italy and Germany fucking loathe each other, and the World Cup is giving us a chance to prove just how much this is true.

On the surface, host nation Germany is working on its national public relations initiative, the incredibly gayly named, "Operation Smile." Haha. This whilst Der Spiegel, which is not unknown for it's often anti-Italian stance (see both covers posted here. Der Pate means The Godfather. That's Ex-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, btw) has published an article today entitled, "Italians: The Usual Parasites", where the average italian was called a "parasitic life-form", who needs a "host country" to feed on, a host country that he will "suck dry." The article was later retracted. Then it was dropped from Der Spiegel's website. In it's place, they left a bland letter of apology (in German and Italian), claiming their article was simply satire which had been pushed too far. But we know the truth. Germans hate "Die Spaghettis" just as much as Italians hate the "Krauti di merda."

In the article, the average Italian, named "Luigi" was identified as a sort of "overgrown baby", who's only aim in life is to "appear tired" whilst his "Mama", the big-titted slave, washes his socks and cooks pasta for him. The article then proceeds to narrate how the average Italian lives with his "Mama" until he's 30, after which he finds a beautiful young Italian wife which he then proceeds to treat like shit until she too becomes a fat, big-titted Mama who cooks for him whilst he spends all day "polishing his Fiat and talking about cars."

According to Der Spiegel, Italy will inch past Ukraine "in their usual oily, lazy fashion", in Friday's upcoming quarter final, and Germany should beat the second-generation Luigis of Argentina. Which means that the Germany vs. Italy semi-final will be the perfect arena to show just how much satire is based on fact.

It will be fun.