So it has happened. South Africa showed the world that they can actually pull it off in nice style next year.
Not so sure about Italy though…

180 minutes of agony

So, few days later, I was back on the road with Lindsey, Jill and Curtis (who swapped their tickets to come and watch Italy with us) to go to Ellis Park, another rugby stadium, and watch Italy Egypt.

Unlike Pretoria, closing the area surrounding the stadium wasn’t that easy. The constant flow of traffic of people going back home after a hard day of work didn’t really help. To get there it took as almost an hour more than to drive to Pretoria…

While I was impressed by the stadium (and by sitting in the top tier I could enjoy the game from a Sensible Soccer kind of view), but the stinky area around it was terrible.
Worst, unlike in the USA game, there were more supporters cheering for Egypt just because they were part of the same continent (I would never cheer France against any other extra-european team, but that’s just me). Come on, Egypt and South Africa have as much in common as Italy and Iceland: they belong to the same continent and they have McDonalds. 

Again, I won’t spend much time to discuss the game. Italy was crap, and they lost. Egypt fully deserved the victory because, if a team of opportunistic like Italy can’t score in 15 chances in 10 minutes, then they shouldn’t even try. It was quite humiliating. I come here,  I take my wife and friends, I sing the national anthem and those 11 + manager + bench don’t even bother. What the hell?

Anyway, with Brazil winning the first two games, Italy had to win or at least draw against the South American team. Sure Italy will find some dignity and, as usually, step up to the appointment when it’s a win-only situation?

This time the game was scheduled back in Pretoria, on Sunday night. I took Lindsey again because I wanted at least once celebrate with her an Italian goal, even if the score was going to be 1-6. We were in the stadium quite early and I’ve even met some of my football teammates. The stadium was the only total sold-out of the competition, and it was obvious from the start that this was going to be a great night of football, if only the team in the pale azzurri shirt (who chose the colour for the competition? It looks awful) decided to play.

It was another disaster. Not even my vuvuzela could compensate from the major disappointment of losing 0-3 against Brazil. It could have been 0-21 and at least most of the players would have never played for the Italian shirt again. Even useless players like Camoranesi (probably Lippi’s lover), Toni (1.94cm and is down at every single contact?), Gilardino (Toni’s lover?) and pretty much everyone in the back four (Grosso excluded). Give me back crazy Materazzi…

And so my confederation cup was over, as quick as it’s started.  I decided to not apply for the semi-finals and finals (who cared anymore? At least they were exciting games to watch on television, I was hoping that South Africa could have gone the whole way but they started celebrating twice a bit too soon…) and to simply reflect about the tournament.

My final thoughts:

• Italian players deserved to be tortured. They played without any character, and as soon as they lost 0-3 they just decided to hide in the changing rooms without even saluting the supporters that waited all their life to cheer them until the end (when even a goal would have qualified us). Unfortunately when the torture manager went into the changing rooms, they were already gone on the holidays that had to postpone because of this tournament
• Forget Ronaldo. Kaka is a superhuman player. A German body with Brazilian skills. And none of the arrogance of his new team mate
• South Africa can pull it off easily. The people loved the tournament, and they were proud of the team, even if they lost 3 times in 5 games to finish 4th.
• It will be a freezing World Cup, bring down some autumn clothes!
• Did I say already that I wish I could kick some Italian players?
• A lot of Arabs went to the Muslim hell probably. Apparently Egyptian got robbed in the hotel by whores, and I’ve never seen so many Arabs drinking beers to celebrate their team’s victory over Italy. Fewer supporters to worry next year.
• I wish I could celebrate at the next world cup (start booking the tickets…) at least one Italian goal with my wife and not ending up like France in 2002 (when they were world cup holders and crashed in the first round without scoring much…)
• I can sing the national anthem. And well.  This is why probably everyone filmed me at the stadium when I was the only one doing so.
• Forget about all the other sports in the world. Football rules.

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