THERE'S HOPE WITH THE POPE

I caught up with the new series, the Young Pope, on Sky Atlantic last night when I should have been down the local pub watching Manchester City thumping Barcelona on BT. Starring Jude Law, he gradually made the story worth watching and when the ladies in the Vatican were shown playing football, soccer, calcio....which ever the Italians call it....I was engrossed. It was the calcio not the "sisters" that got me going, honest! Diana Keaton was starring in the series, so I had to reminisce.

The Vatican City, founded in 1929 under the Lateran Treaty, has seen organised football being played since 1947, and has a national football team, founded in 1972. Early matches were too violent and noisy, so the "competitive matches" were disbanded, to be revived in 1966. The V.C. is one of 8 sovereign states not in FIFA.

Being very much an amateur football state, the V.C. played its first official match in 1985 against an Austrian Journalists' XI. The team has been coached by Giovanni Trapatonni (October 2010) and he has a bit of a c.v. One game on his watch was against the Italian Financial Police. No bets or bungs on the game then? Today Gianfranco Guadagnoli is the gaffer.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II (who admits to hvavng played in goal in his native Poland) established a Sports' Department in the Vatican, stating that the sport of football was a "good vehicle for education". Indeed the "club" has invented a BLUE card in place of red and yellow which is shown for unsporting behaviour and the player is sin binned! Very appropriate and part of a learning curve. (worth seeing yesterday's blog on this subject).

When you consider that 42 players in the final stages of the 1990 World Cup had been under Salesian training, each one could have played for the V.C. being Catholics. Bearing this in mind, the V.City could put out a decent team. But since there is a matter of nationality, the selector(s)...him up there?....the Pope?....is limited to pick only people who work in the V.C.  The City has a population of 900 and of course the potential players have to look after the Pope, including the Pontificial Swiss Guard. So putting out a team does have its problems.

NICE KIT?
Despite this issue with selection, the V.C. has played San Marino (reserves), Monaco (several times), SV Vollmond (from Switz) and Palestine's Catholic Priests (won 6-1). There is an internal competition called the Vatican League (Campionato Vaticano di Calcio), formed in 1973 involving teams from the Vatican staff and there is also the Clericus Cup which invites teams from Roman Colleges. This has its own social media and TV coverage.

Football (Calcio Fiorentino- a brutal form of mob football) has been played in the "Cortile del Belvedere" since at least 1521, although the Pope is a bit miffed when the Italian leagues insist on matches played on Sundays when his Catholics should be otherwise engaged.