This is a long essay from Gainluca Vialli's book about the cultural differences in footbll. Take time and read and once done who can analyse the Nigerian mindset in terms of football?

[b]“To the Italian player, football is a job: to the English one, it’s a game.”

“In the Italian psyche there is a certain type of nervous tension, a stupid nervous tension, which is instilled into young footballers from an early age,” says Fabio Capello. “And the result is that, when they are on the pitch, they would rather be somewhere else. To them it’s a job. It’s not fun.” José Mourinho sees it in the same way. “You see the Italian under-16 team and you can see a little Maldini running around the pitch, never smiling, just tackling. He just plays to win and if he has to cheat, he cheats. Here in England, there is much more emotion.

“Here you are put under pressure if you don’t fight. In other countries, you are criticised if you don’t perform. In Italy, if you pay five million for a striker and he scores one goal all season, he can’t walk the streets. Here, Mateja Kezman is applauded.”

As always, Mourinho doesn’t mince his words when assessing the way young footballers are formed in England: “I felt when I arrived at Chelsea that the way we looked to the formation (of young players) was not the correct way,” he says. “And I guess Chelsea is no different from other clubs. When you look to the youth football in England you don’t find many talented players. You have to go abroad because there is not a lot of talent here.”

Mourinho’s players love their football. There is, in that, a purity — an innocence — which, in many ways, we don’t have in Italy. Yet it can cause players to neglect the basic elements of being a footballer, such as training, discipline and, perhaps most of all, the mental side of the game. “I keep telling my players, ‘You have to think the game, you have to control your emotions, it’s not just about scoring goals,’ ” says Mourinho. “But they play with their heart, while we (in Portugal and Italy) play with our brains.”

When I came to England in 1996 it surprised me that most teams played a similar brand of football using identical tactical schemes. Across Europe, teams were using all sorts of formations, yet the Premiership was dominated by the basic, no frills 4-4-2. When a manager changes formations in Italy, he is seen as looking for solutions. In England he is a tinkerer. “In England they are convinced that they are the masters of football,” says Marcello Lippi.

“Football is XYZ and there is one proper way of doing it. And so they do the same things over and over again. In Italy, our minds work rather differently. We always believe there is a better way. That’s why we’re more progressive.”

Arsène Wenger says: “There is a story I like to tell. In Japan, if you tell the players to sprint at high speed into a brick wall, they will do it unquestioningly. Then, when they crack their heads open and fall to the ground, they look at you and feel completely betrayed. The English player runs at full speed into the brick wall, gets up, dusts himself off and does it again. He won’t feel betrayed by his manager or ask himself the point of running into the wall.

“Now, the French player, like the Italian, will react differently. He’ll look at you and say, ‘Why don’t you show us first how it’s done?’ You see, the thing is that they only trust the manager to a certain point. It’s in the blood of the English. It’s the almost military attitude with which they approach everything. They do as they’re told, they follow orders, they do not question authority and they never give up. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every time there is a war, the English almost always win.”

If you look at the protagonists of the traditional English literary canon — whether it’s Beowulf or King Lear — they are great heroes or tragic figures who see the world in black and white. The rational characters in those stories are devious, like Lear’s elder daughters, who plot against him. Even Hamlet, who appears clever in setting up a play to expose his father’s murderer, is driven by madness and anger.

Contrast this with Descartes, whose belief in reason and rationality was so strong that he decided to prove God’s existence.

It comes back to the key point on which most people I spoke to seemed to agree, that in England it’s a game, in Italy a job. “We, and I include Portugal with Italy, forget to teach the other side of football, the one which is also beautiful, the one which says it’s a game,” says Mourinho. “Sometimes, here, the crowd controls the game. We drew 2-2 at home to Bolton last season and it was a disgrace. An Italian team, a Portuguese team, a French team, all of them . . . if they are winning 2-0 in the second half the game is finished.”

Sir Alex Ferguson agrees. “When a game goes to 2-0 in Italy you tend to think the side which is losing will accept it won’t happen for them. In England that never happens. We don’t have that way of thinking. Machiavelli . . . that’s rational, that’s Italian. Christ! He could think.”

In both countries management is like a drug addiction. “You can think about the game too much as a manager,” Sir Alex says. “That’s what happened to me a few years ago. I had trouble thinking about anything that was not football. It’s as if I was in a fog all the time, unable to relate to anything. That’s when I got into other interests. I had to. You need to be able to disconnect, otherwise management consumes you.” [/b]

Interesting !!!! More pls

as requested more:
[b]
TRIBAL WARFARE

FOR ITALIAN FANS THE JOY OF football is primarily derived from results, but in England just being there counts for something. It is a sign of belonging, it is doing one’s duty. “Here in England their patience is infinite,” says Sven-Göran Eriksson. “The supporters never criticise and they always applaud you. It doesn’t matter if you do well or not, the supporters are always there.”

For Arsène Wenger, the reasons for this are historical. “Anglo-Saxon culture is all about banding together in small groups which, to survive, had to remain united. British history is the history of thousands of years of warring clans so, to survive they looked inwards, fostering unity. That was their strength. It was very clannish and tribal.

“Italy and France were also tribal, but to survive they did things differently. That’s why our history is the history of alliances and betrayals, of the Borgias, of double-crosses, of being with one ally one year and another the next. You loved your colours but you loved your own survival more. The Latins think more, they reason more, they are more analytical.

“This is why if I were going to war I would want to be alongside an Englishman not a Frenchman. The Frenchman would think too much.”[/b]