Malta v Italy: Football World Cup Qualifier

the 'South End Core' lead the singing

Malta and Italy have a strange kind of relationship.  Italy is kind of like the skinny-jean, funny hair wearing, cigarette smoking, strutting 15-year-old cousin that young Malta really wants to be, but can't quite pull off.  In purely footballing terms, this leads to most Maltese supporting Italian clubs like Juventus and Milan, and cheering the Italian national side on in all the major tournaments.  A lot of big country/little country neighbours have love/hate relationships, but Malta's is definitely more loving than most.   I saw one vox pop being conducted on the street by a Maltese newspaper asking Maltese people who they were going to support, a question which if it were asked on the streets of Dublin before a game against England would have led one to fear for the safety of the interviewer.

Anyway, all of which complicated relationship stuff led to a rare full house at the Ta 'Qali National Stadium for the visit of Italy.  The more optimistic Maltese fans were predicting a 1-3 loss, but they actually started quite brightly, buoyed by unambiguously vocal home support.  This lasted for around about 10 minutes. Then some sloppy defending led to a soft penalty award, which Mario Balotelli finished in that detached way he has of scoring unstoppable penalties.  Malta were unbowed however, and managed to put a couple of half-threatening moves together, one of which led to a penalty of their own.  Was this to be the moment Malta stuffed it to the Italian cousins?