Socrates Was Not Impressed By Italian Football

By: Martha | July 20th, 2007

Look at those tiny shorts! In an interview with France Football (the bulk of which is only available in the print edition), Brazilian legend Socrates pulled no punches, ripping the hell out of not only Italian football, but also the Brazilian national team and it’s performance at the 2006 World Cup. The guy is so frank, honestly, that you’d almost think he was drunk and just sort of venting his spleen. For example, regarding Ronaldo at the World Cup: “A guy who presents himself … weighing 97 kilos should be put in prison! It was not a World Cup of sumo! In Germany, it was obese! It was not an athlete … Him and Adriano, they was two trees planted in attack.” Ooooh snap. (The insult is heightened by Google translate’s decision to make Ronaldo an “it,” but I promise you the rest of it is all Socrates.)

When asked about his experience during the year he spent with Fiorentina in the mid 1980s, the Brazilian’s opinion was similarly harsh: He sees the Italian league — then and now — as wildly corrupt both inside and out. (There is reference to “mafia” in the La Gazzetta write-up of the article, but it’s hard to tell if he using the term as a general one or accusing specific people of involvement.) As evidence, he mentions a specific game before which the Viola captain — Eraldo Pecci, just so we know who will be issuing the denials — told the team they needed to play to a tie. When Socrates resisted, he says he didn’t touch the ball for the entire first half and was substituted in the second; the game ended 0-0. Yikes. That’s not so much the sort of thing you want to hear no matter how far in the past it is.

I’m sort of surprised this story isn’t everywhere — I’ve seen it only in La Gazzetta and France Football; nowhere else on the web, and nowhere in English. I’m not sure if it’s because Socrates really was drunk and is a totally unreliable source — this seems unlikely, because as far as I can tell he’s smart as hell and still very respected — or if people are so cynical about calcio’s past that they’re assuming it’s true and would rather not talk about it, or what. If nothing else, it’s just another sign Calciopoli is new only in terms of names and faces, not the issues at hand.