Well, I tried. I can't hold back. I haven't written anything about the World Cup at all, since there's been overwhelming coverage of it already from fan chat to fan blogs to "celebrity" blogs and analysis out the wazoo. I  haven't written anything in the "soccer" (or football, whichever you prefer) since Euro 2004... mostly because I haven't watched anything since then, short of the last couple matches of the Champions League a month or two ago, however...

FORZA ITALIA!

OK now that that's out of the way. Head sent me some pictures from Commercial Drive, but as usual, I got a lot of shots of rooftops and peoples hair. TIME FOR A NEW DIGITAL CAMERA, HEAD! I think he was drunk, too... on beer and national pride. He signed his name Giuseppe instead of Joey at the end of the email :)

For my part, I was parked in front of the big screen at Legendz watching the game. I was invited to a bbq/watching party down in South Sound, but I had a HUGE headache and wanted to see the game and then skin out as quick as I could, so I just walked across the street instead. Legendz was packed three-deep at the bar.. three rows of stools that is. Standing room only crowds BEHIND them and little narrow passageways for the servers to navigate through, although they had to keep their elbows up and yell EXCUSE ME a lot in any case. I was sitting next to a German guy who was still a little bitter about the semi-final loss to Italy. He looked at my jersey (curiously one of the very few there... the whole crowd of Italians from Pappagallo's and Cafe Med and Ragazzi and Azzuro were nowhere to be seen (until later) and said "Where are you from? You don't LOOK Italian" Like that stopped anyone from wearing a Brasil jersey when they were red-headed freckled whiteboys. He went on blathering about how Italy got "lucky" at the end of the game. They beat the goalie twice only to hit the post/crossbar before putting away two beatiful goals at 118' and 121'. I told him you have to be good to be lucky and he mostly shut up after that.

Everything was going well. Sure the game was a nail-biter, and there were a bunch of French fans at the bar, too but they were outnumbered and outshouted by the Italian fans. Right up until the headbutt... WHAT THE FUCK WAS UP WITH THAT?

The guy holds a press conference and says that he was told in a dream to captain France one more time... and then takes them all the way to the Final. That's like Babe Ruth pointing to the stands and then then hitting a home run to that section. The guy was on his way to being a superstar of Pele stature.. a Michael Jordan, a Wayne Gretzky, a hero, idol and role-model for kids everywhere on superstar skills and good sportsmanship... and then in his sunset game, just ten minutes from maybe winning on penalty kicks, he goes and headbutts another player and gets ejected from the game. What an asshole.

It's been about 24 hours since the penalty kick shootout and already someone's made a "Zidane" Flash game. Check it out http://tonaz.altervista.org/zidane.html Use the mouse to control Zidane and click your mouse button to make him headbutt the multiple Matterazis on the screen. See what kind of high score you can get. Someone at work forwarded this to me and I laughed my ASS off.