It’s all very well, everyone’s an expert in swimming and athletics. But on Sundays, all we look forward to is the league

No cheers for the organisers of the European Athletics and Swimming Championships, who managed to stage two such major sporting events on the same days, forcing them to compete for viewing figures, spectators and media coverage. Plenty of cheers for Great Britain, though, and since I’m feeling generous and Italy objectively dominated both events, a cheer for you lot too. I remain loyal to football, my first love straight after a perfectly poured blonde, but being English I haven’t had to pretend to be an expert in obscure sports like eighty per cent of Italians have had to do over the past few weeks.

Perhaps disappointed by a transfer window that was more of a farce than a serious affair, for 15 days you abandoned discussions about playing for the sake of the game and results-oriented football, only to suddenly find yourselves middle-distance running gurus, turning-corner experts, childhood friends of Quadarella, and physiotherapists who could have given Jacobs and Furlani better advice. Some of you were reminded of when the PE teacher made you practise discus throwing (though they had a note excusing them) and of your first time at the seaside without armbands. It was a close contest, and I won’t lie when I say I’m not absolutely fed up about the athletics medal tally you won by three hundredths of a second ahead of us – perhaps it’s because the stadium in Birmingham where the events were held looked like Catanzaro’s football ground, and you felt right at home in that dilapidated venue. I’m fair enough to admit that ranking national teams solely on the basis of gold medals won is utter rubbish, and that in swimming I’d have been happy even with a tie.

The tragedy – yours – is that you will only remember the athletes you have been cheering on over the past two weeks again at next year’s World Championships, and only if they achieve significant results. After commenting on interviews with relay runners and divers with remarks like “ah, how well they speak and how humble they are, not at all like those stuck-up, boorish, overpaid footballers, my dear’, as of yesterday you’ve already gone back to talking about the row between Maldini and Malagò, about when Gattuso will be sacked after his brilliant debut in the Coppa Italia, about where Diego Moreira will play, and about how much better Vicario will be than Di Gregorio. All of this is peppered with the usual platitudes that sports journalists churn out in droves every time an Italian wins something without kicking a ball into the net: I’m referring to the classic feature articles on “what football can learn from…” (where the ‘teacher’ in question is, from time to time, volleyball, fencing, tennis, athletics, swimming, rugby or bocce), or the random accusations of racism because there aren’t enough black footballers, unlike in other sports. How tedious.

The truth is that nothing compares to football, and you might well have got carried away by the 50-metre backstroke, pretending to recognise the swimmers by the colour of their swim caps, or by the 4x100 relay, pretending to know how to pass the baton without getting disqualified, but the only thing you really care about is who your favourite team is playing in their next match. I apologize for your athletes and swimmers, but they will recover. (Yes, yes, female athletes and swimmers as well – do not worry).