Pride and prejudice: Best and worst sides of the Italian game

Last Friday night at around 10.50pm, the streets and piazzas from Milan to Palermo filled up with flag-waving, horn-tooting Italians celebrating their team's 3-0 triumph. It was the customary way to celebrate a World Cup win in Italy, but it had been a long time coming.

Italy came into the tournament with their club football under the poisonous cloud of a corruption investigation which threatens to be one of the most damaging and damning of the recent past. Celebrations after first-round victories over Ghana and the Czech Republic, and the second-round win over Australia, had been muted as a consequence and many Azzurri fans had been ambivalent, even embarrassed, about the team's presence in Germany at such a time.

The hard-fought victory over Ukraine finally provided a release from the tension and Italy go into tonight's semi-final against Germany on a wave of optimism, with the nation behind them.

The parallel narratives of Italy's progress towards the ultimate in football glory and the unfolding of the match-fixing investigation were already grimly fascinating before the disturbing twist of the apparent attempted suicide of the Juventus team manager, Gianluca Pessotto, one week ago. But it appears that adversity has fused an indomitable Italian team spirit, which could help bring Italy's first World Cup since 1982.

The similarities between that 1982 triumph in Spain and Italy's arrival in Germany have been flagged up as auspicious by Italian commentators but are overplayed. True, Italy went into the 1982 tournament after a match-fixing scandal, but that scandal had taken place two years earlier and was history for most Italians by the time the World Cup came around. Paolo Rossi, suspended from football for his role in the affair, had served his time and famously returned to pick up the Golden Boot as Italy beat Argentina and Brazil on the way to defeating Germany in the final.

The 1980 scandal ended with the Italian Football Federation relegating Milan and Lazio as punishment. The two clubs, along with Juventus and Fiorentina, face the same prospect if found guilty at the federation's disciplinary hearings.

After a false start on Thursday, the tribunal got under way again yesterday with defence lawyers' objections to the authority of the court and the timescale of the hearings dismissed by the presiding judge, Cesare Ruperto. Verdicts are expected early next week and appeal verdicts by 20 July. The Italian federation has to give Uefa, the European game's governing body, a list of clubs competing in Europe next season by 27 July.

Also in the dock are 26 individuals. These are: eight former top FA officials, including former association president, Franco Carraro; eight club directors, including Luciano Moggi, the former Juventus sporting director accused of creating a "Mafia-style" match-fixing ring within the game; eight referees and two linesmen. All face penalties ranging from suspension to life bans but deny any wrongdoing.

There were calls last week from some of Italy's more populist politicians for an amnesty of all those involved, should Italy win the World Cup next Sunday. But the government's will to ensure that there is no whitewash appears strong. In an open letter to Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, published yesterday on the front page of the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper, the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, said: "We know the serious problems of our football. This match [Germany v Italy] cannot cancel its evils, cannot push into the background the criminal aspects which have emerged. Italian football needs a profound reformation."

Prodi is not shackled by the conflict of interests of owning one of the clubs facing charges - unlike Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns Milan. Prodi has much to gain from being seen as the leader who helped to clean up the national game but for the moment most Italian eyes are on another leader, Marcello Lippi.

Like the Germany coach, Jürgen Klinsmann, Lippi inherited and then transformed a team dispirited after a poor showing at Euro 2004. Tuscany's answer to Paul Newman is an astute tactician. But his real strength lies in the relationship he forges with his players. The great Dutch coach Rinus Michels called it team-building. Italians use the expression fare il gruppo, or "creating the group". Tellingly, Lippi has used every one of his outfield players during the tournament.

Alessandro Nesta, the central defender, who was fighting to overcome a thigh injury ahead of tonight's game, stressed this point when talking before the World Cup. "What Lippi brought more than anything else was enthusiasm and a belief in our abilities," he told me. "We were down after Euro 2004 and he lifted us up again. Later, he started to spell out his tactical ideas, but his most important job was the one he did on our heads."

Lippi has spent the last few days playing down the significance of Italy's 4-1 walloping of Germany in a friendly in March. However, despite Germany's home advantage and an impressive performance against Argentina, Italy should go through to the final. Germans love Gary Lineker's remark that, in the end, Germany always win but in four World Cup meetings they have never beaten Italy.

July 2006 is probably the most important month in the history of Italian football, but the maelstrom of emotions swirling around the game should come as little surprise. Calcio has always been a beguiling mixture of Machiavelli and Michelangelo: cold pragmatism and moments of soaring beauty.

In a Rome courtroom, calcio's culture of the end justifying the means is facing a ruthless purge. In the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, Italy's fantasisti are preparing to light up the World Cup. And in a Turin hospital, Gianluca Pessotto is showing the first tentative signs of recovery.