With their waxed chests, nightclub pillaging and cars so big that the front and back seats are in different time zones, footballers attract bad press. They parade their hello kitty wives; blame the coach for playing like a bunch of strangers who have just met on public transport; and moan so much that they become an embodiment of the argument that money does not buy you happiness. And when interviewed, they say whatever is on their minds, which has the intellectual vibrancy of a soap opera and which resounds with the nothingness of an echo in a void.

Yet their step over, double scissors and circus-worthy trickery with some sewn and pumped up leather is our weekend slice of fun; the sweetener to our daily grind. Especially if they hail from the golden era of football; that time when players did not dive theatrically as if they have been shot by a sniper; did not become a bandiera simply by playing for the same club for 90 minutes (plus three minutes of injury time); and their weekly wage was not the equivalent of what could buy you a villa with room for a pony. And their names were a powerful invocation - Spillo Altobelli, Signori, McAllister, Parlour, Gascoigne. On Sunday nights, they sent us to bed nursing dreams of footballing glory; and they made us love the beautiful game for what it is - something which, as Bill Shankly once famously said, is more important than life and death.

Which is why seeing them running and kicking around to warm up their sinews and, admittedly in some cases, a bit of flab on the side, on Maltese-tended turf sends shivers down everyone's spine. The crowd gathered to watch the Legends Match is warming up. The English fans are stocking up on beer; the Italian fans are practising their jeers and everyone is hanging out their banners in anticipation. A little boy wears a Brazil shirt emblazoned with Ronaldo's number 9. So maybe he did not get the context right, but he is probably closer to understanding why his father stays up late at night watching the classic reruns on cable with a nostalgia-soaked tear simmering from his eyes.

Then the players walk out of the tunnels, and the old rivalry sparks up on the stands. And I am sorry to say that our blue-shirted neighbours get the loudest cheers. Sorry, that is, for the English fans. Who are soon back in the running when one of the English fans, with a Grandma-what-a-big-voice-you-have thunder of the larynx, greets McAllister with the loudest of football season's greetings. He would continue with his McAllister-targeted bellows for the rest of the night. And probably, for the rest of his stay in Malta and mid-air on his way back home, much to the hostesses' concern.

And the game begins. The Italians look more toned, and Baresi is still a master of positioning in the back four, allowing the rest of the team peace of mind to push forward. But the lads in white soon settle down, and McAllister (much to the loud joy of the English guy in the vicinity of my bubble) squeezes a save out of Tacconi. In reply Signori, who being the player who retired most recently is still in great physical shape, thunders a shot that, as a football commentator would describe it, sails over the bar. Then much against the run of play, which is something the Italians usually do, the England outfit takes the lead, with Hateley soaring over the Italian defence and sending a header billowing the back of the net. The English fans go as wild as you can go on a family outing, and England-supporting sons turn on their Azzurri fathers. It is half the Oedipal complex acted out, with less bloodshed of course.

Sometime later, a Rizzitelli shot slaps against the post but minutes later, Lorenzo Amoruso thunders a shot past Peter Reid. It is 1-1, and back to the drawing board. But when the teams look to have settled for a half-time draw, Baresi puts the Italians in the lead. While men his age would rather nurse a verdun in a cage under their arm pits or sit and stare in bars, wishing they were hungover, Baresi runs up the field. It is the Milan man again; solid as a tank, but sometimes deadly as a sniper. He does not attract attention. He does not sparkle, but he is there, constant and craving for victory. He exchanges with Bianchi, takes a couple of steps, stops, and hits the jackpot. It is like watching one of those dramatic-soaring-violins-in-the-background films, with the retired boxer who returns to the ring for one last fight; or the heavy-set old timer who goes on one last mission to save his pretty little niece from the baddies, or something. They win the fight, they save the niece, we invest our emotions in them, and then they die, breathing out their last aphorism. In this case, Baresi just walks back to the dressing rooms.

In the second half, the players are tired. Time and age have withered them, and their body may trick their mind, but their technical and tactical brilliance that once made them obvious choices in the starting eleven is still there. Which basically means more goals. And here they come. The whites are saved by the post a couple of times, before Silenzi scores a brace, and Rizzitelli rounds up the numbers with a fifth goal. Not even 'Gazza' Gascoigne, wearing a crop of bright hair, can stop the Italians claiming victory. But then, not even a 5-1 result can stop the England fans cheering and the English guy from bellowing out to McAllister. Could be the beer. But probably, it is because beyond the rivalry, beyond the victory and the loss, football is a celebration of all that is human, both fallible and transcendental. And life is a football pitch.

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