The Italian media has hailed the Azzurri as legends for winning Sunday's World Cup final in the face of ongoing scandal for many of the player's league clubs. "It's all true! Champions of the world," said the front page headline of sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport. "We are the champions of the world, although no one thought we would be and no one wanted us to be," columnist Mario Sconcerti wrote in Corriere della Sera. Italy beat France in a penalty shootout to lift the trophy for the fourth time, making the team the second most successful in the World Cup's history after Brazil. "Mythical. As Always, Thank you Thank you," Tutto Sports front page blared of the team's 5-3 victory over France. Despite the country's legacy, few had expected the squad to win the cup, considering the match-fixing scandal rocking Italian football. Italy is undergoing the largest trial in sports history, Serie A champions Juventus, along with Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina are all under investigation as part of allegations of sports fraud. Juventus face the worst repercussions, with the possible revocation of their last two championship titles as well as a relegation to a lower league. Still, optimism brimmed from the media as one journalist hailed the victory as a return to simpler times for Italian football and a beacon of hope for the league clubs. "The cynics will say that the stars looking for new contracts after their clubs are relegated," wrote Gianni Riotta in a front-page column in Corriere della Sera. "Not us. We think that after the phone taps, the accusations, the intrigue and the fraud, each one of the Azzurri returned for a month to what they were when they were lads on the street, when football was a dream."
