Italy-Ukraine!

I was in tiny Udine when Italy beat the Ukraine in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. It’s now time to face the mighty Germans in Tuesday’s semi-final match. That match will take place on July 4th and at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Rome there’ll be the big Independence Day party. The wife works there so we hope that they’ll install a large screen otherwise those 3,500 guests, mostly Italians, who have been invited will most likely come up with an excuse to not show up. Living in Rome I’m naturally hoping for the Italy-Brazil final, a vindication of the 1970 and 1994 finals. If Italy were to win I can’t imagine what the city will be like nor the entire country. It’ll be especially nice for me as I was in Rome in 1990 during that World Cup and I was SURE that Italy would be in the final. Instead, in Naples it got eliminated by Maradona’s Argentina, who in turn was eliminated in Rome by West Germany (coincidentally, some two months before the unification of the two Germanys. In fact, there was NO pk for Germany and two Argentine players were red-carded). I lived in Winnipeg during Italy’s last World Cup victory in 1982. I still remember packing the car and driving downtown with other Italians and Italo-Canadians and waving the Italian flag. I still remember driving through the Portuguese neighbourhood and listening to all the insults (they were jealous because Italy had won and they weren’t even in the World Cup to begin with!). Yes, it’d certainly be nice to re-live those magical moments again.