FLORENCE, ITALY – The international website Polico.eu deals with one of the most controversial Florentine traditions, the historical football.
«While the rest of Europe is glued to the Euro 2016 football championship, Florentines are spending June bellowing support for bands of bare-chested ruffians engaged in bouts of brawling, bruising and bare-knuckle bashing in what’s probably the world’s most brutal ball game», Paul Ames reported on Polico.eu.
Too cruel for a sport, titled the international website, but it explains that murderers and kidnappers are barred in the last editions. «On the sand of Piazza Santa Croce – Ames wrote -, there’s none of the histrionics, diving and faked injuries that mar modern soccer. This game has no substitutions. Wounded warriors struggle on».
The first comments on the Politico.eu webiste consider the post «a little exagerate», others make fun of «the very civilized» Florence . The debate remains open. In the meanwhile, the final of the tournament is played every year in the central Piazza Santa Croce on St. John’s Day, June 24, patron saint of Florence.
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