Near a tree

Ho mandato questo messaggio poco fa, sulla lista dell’ALAC… dove la persona che mi è succeduta come Chair, Annette, è tedesca :-) Ma come spiegare agli americani cos’è la Coppa del Mondo di calcio?

Ok, I admit it: it was mean, even if usual among friends who support opposite teams, to send a message to our Chair just thirty seconds after the match ended, and say “see you in 2010” – apologies. It was a great match, ugly and nervous, as all World Cup semifinals always are. But in the extra times we hit the posts twice, before scoring twice at the very last minute. Germany wasted a couple of good opportunities to score. They were so nasty not to give back the ball, twice, after we sent it out to allow for injured people to be assisted, the most unfair thing you can do in a football match; this only made us more determined to win. Nonetheless, it could have ended differently, but well, that’s life.

And you really can’t imagine what is happening here now. The road in front of my house – and I live quite far from the city centre – is packed, occupied by a huge traffic jam made by hundreds, thousands of cars honking their horns repeatedly at maximum volume. All of them have national flags and people screaming, many of them have people leaning out of the windows, some even their back door opened with two, four, six more people sitting in the trunk, or even standing while the car speeds up. On the sidewalks, children and elderly people wave flags and greet the gathering. There will be no rest and no sleep tonight, for hours and hours, to celebrate. And it’s just the semifinal!

But it was against Germany, our arch-rival in football. 36 years ago, before I was born (but we are taught that match at school), Italy defeated Germany 4-3 in the semifinal, after unbelievable extra times. 24 years ago, Italy won the World Cup beating Germany in the final. 16 years ago, Germany came to win the World Cup in Italy, something that is still hard to swallow. Beating Germany is not like beating anyone else; and having given back some of 1990’s bitterness is already a nice satisfaction. Especially after these last days. The other day, a Lufthansa pilot dumped an Italian school class, and refused to take them on board. The German government shoot a bear that had been born and raised in Italy and then ran through the Alps. Der Spiegel ran an article that described Italians as the usual mafia, pizza and macho junkies. Tonight, the whole country really wanted to show something to our German neighbours.

Now, the final, maybe against France, second ranked in our historical rivals list for European hegemony. However it will end, it will be a month to remember. And thus, I’m so sorry for those few people who don’t speak football.

This entry was posted on mercoledì, Luglio 5th, 2006 at 12:32 am, and is filed under Itaaaalia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.