Italia v France
Tuesday night was Italy against France in Zurich.
The clever money (ie mine) was on Holland fielding none of their best players and Romania beating them, which would mean the result of the big duel would actually be irrelevant. But The Dutch reserves were so good that that didn’t happen.
And so it was a straight fight between the two 2006 World Cup finalists. And like many big matches, it was dull.
Admittedly I was being plied with free beer and there was some very pleasant company, but the game was dull.
That didn’t stop the Italians celebrating though, driving through the city streets, horns blaring.
Sometimes I think I don’t have a soul. I was thinking OK, you won, but you played badly and beat a team with 10 men and one of their best players carried off in the first ten minutes.
Maybe I paid too much attention at school when they were doling out lessons on how to be British: “It’s not whether you win or lose that counts, it’s how you play the game”.
And actaully qualifying to play the game in the first place perhaps? Avanti Azzurri!
Photos: Flickr: stefan0, nico3000
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POSTED IN: Zurich
6 opinions for Italia v France
Alex-Sirened
Jun 19, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I saw on CNN that they were going nuts in Italy. What’s going to be fun though is when they get eliminated (by Spain or whomever) and go back home to an empty airport and everybody in Italy pissed at them.
MattFM
Jun 19, 2008 at 8:07 pm
The Italians were going nuts in Bedford, UK too, where 2 in 7 of the population are of Italian descent, one of the highest concentrations, outside of Italy itself, in the world. The town even has an Italian vice-consulate, the only vice-consulate in the world that isn’t in a capital city. Anyway, enough pointless facts.
As one of those 30%, I really enjoyed the match and look forward to the quarters. FORZA ITALIA!
Great blog incidentally and a cracking stadium photo in this post.
MattFM
Jun 19, 2008 at 8:09 pm
And in addition, the Italians love to celebrate. They’ll be celebrating even if they lose against Spain (which obviously won’t happen).
Alex-Sirened
Jun 20, 2008 at 1:05 am
In the 1994 World Cup when Italy lost to Brazil in penalty kicks, didn’t the Italian team return home to an empty airport??
MattFM
Jun 20, 2008 at 10:03 am
No idea. I was too young to care. I’ve searched online and nothing came up to suggest so. I doubt it was completely empty. Unless they arrived when the fire alarm was going off.
Geoff
Jun 20, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I’ve been to an Italian airport that was empty. During the ski season, and it was just dead. But I don’t think the Italians come out to welcome home a team that’s lost. You just need to read the Gazzetto dello Sport to understand just how passionate the Italians are, and how little they tolerate failure. It’s probably tantamount to insulting their Mother or something!
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