Monday, June 19, 2006
He Says
I want to tag on to the taxi story. What Donna didn’t mention and what I failed to tell her, is that we used our last Euro on the call to the taxi service. We had seven or eight to start, but the first three were wasted on a German information service. I greeted the receiver of my call and asked if she spoke English. She said something like Farfegnugen or (however you spell that!). I said, “Ich verstehe es nicht!” She said, “Yah, yah.” Then I think she was speaking German again, or perhaps she got something caught in her throat. Then she hung up on me. It all worked out in the end, though we would’ve been sleeping at the train station if the taxi service dispatcher didn’t sprechenzi English!
Aside from the game itself, it was so awesome to see Donna so into the game. On the first goal we scored, I turned to Donna and noticed she was being embraced by an old guy who had the seat next to her; they were jumping up and down cheering. Awesome. Then when Beasley scored, we still have no idea why the goal was disallowed, I joined into the celebratory embrace and probably high-fived about six people before I noticed Buffon was preparing to put the ball back in play. Talk about a buzzkill. Most of you have heard the phrase, “Pimpin’ aint’s easy.” Well, for Donna, “Huggin’ ain’t easy!” While she did not exactly hug this random guy, of course her arms were down as they are when many of have tried to hug her, but she did not push him away or even look uneasy. This is fool-proof evidence that wifey was into the game.
Yesterday I wore a red shirt that has the bust of
After the game, some of the singing and chanting continued. For reasons unbeknownst to reasonable people the stadium only had one exit open. So it was a bit of on ordeal to get out. Some particularly enthusiastic
Maybe you don’t know that the Italian league (mainly the four biggest clubs) referees, management and several of the star players are under investigation for match-fixing and gambling. Juventus, one of its richest and most powerful clubs, may be dropped to the third division due to the scandal.
In the first half, Mastroeni was a beast. Totti was taken out of the game because he could do nothing against Pablo. Typically the manager of a 10-man team would remove a striker, but pretty-boy-mr-roma-mr-italia-mr-d&g couldn't do anything against our Pablo. The stadium would not show a replay of the red-card tackle so I don’t know how bad it looked but Pablo has got to be smarter. When the other team is down a man, you know the ref is looking to even things out. Two-footed tackles are out of the question. We’ll really miss him against
I thought there would be more changes from Tuesday’s lineup. One change I was ecstatic to see was Clint Dempsey for Beasley. Clint is like 23 years old, playing on the world’s biggest stage and he is just chilling, dancing on the ball. This guy knows joga bonito. Most important, his play was effective and it seemed to unnerve the Italians. I guess Bruce wanted more defense when he subbed in Beasley after we went down a man.
Donovan had a couple of nice runs. I wish we’d see more of them, but they are not likely as long as he is playing up top. Convey had a few nice runs as well and he served in the dangerous set piece that the Italian so kindly knocked in for us. I can't see a negative word about a US player on this night. I probably could say a few negative words about little Stevie, but not tonight.
I'll get the pictures and hopefully video up tomorrow.