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True blue victory

An Italian football fan relives exciting moments of the FIFA

Being one of the very few Italians in Chennai is not easy: with the World Cup just over and the Azzurri crowned World Champions for the fourth time, I've been missing my loud fellow countrymen, who were going berserk and invading the squares in Rome, Milan and Naples partying all night long, while I was stuck here in `Cricketland'. I was in an Italian restaurant in Nungambakkam, surrounded by Italians, who like me are living in Chennai for cultural purposes or (mostly) are on business trips to the city, is growing larger and larger. Last Sunday, both Italy and France were two teams that had a lot to prove, who unexpectedly but deservingly made it to the final after quite a bit of unfavourable criticism at the beginning of the tournament. I won't say that they had nothing to lose: on the contrary, they had everything to win. France had the chance to win their second World Cup, elevating them to the worldly prestige of a country like Argentina, unjustly eliminated in the quarter finals more by Fate than by Germany; Italy, so far a three-time world-beater, got hold of its fourth World Cup trophy, making its way closer to the five golden trophies won by Brazil, and entering into legend.

It was not Ballack to lift the 2006 FIFA World Cup (that long ago replaced the Coupe Jules Rimet), nor Zidane, who shamefully ended his career with a red card following some unreasonable behaviour. What a joy when I saw, with my incredulous eyes, Cannavaro laying his hands on football's holiest of holies! All of that after a match played with fair play (ignoring Zidane), breathtaking until the last minute, with no boring tactical slow-downs of rhythm, no goalies' aimless tug-of-war kicks: I only regret those hideous penalties.

But still, thank heavens, Italy won.

GIUSEPPE TRAPANI

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