Tuesday, July 04, 2006

The Day the Robot Cried

The renewed and seemingly oblivious to controversy Azzurri squad took down the Cup’s mightily favored Germanic robots today, in a match that was consistently well-played by both national teams and that went into extra time, wherein the Italian side scored two magnificent goals—the first by Fabio Grossman; the second by Alessandro Del Piero—with only a minute left before the dreaded penalty kicks would’ve decided things. With both teams visibly exhausted, Italy managed to find the determination to advance into the final, while Germany was arguably content to hold onto the nil-nil score and gamble everything on the outcome of the final chapter.

I should have been a neutral on this one, but Argentina’s loss to Germany in the quarter finals left a nasty, brutal taste in my mouth, and I couldn’t wait to see Jurgen Klinsmann’s rather impressive Teutonic squad short-circuit and fade away into the history books. Bravissimo to Italia! You deserved it fair and square and looked aggressive and hungry throughout. You looked like champions. But now, with all due respect to the Azzurri fans out there who may read this, I look forward to seeing Zizou and company resuming where they left off in ’98.

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