It has been a busy weekend for us. The Wimbledon finals and soon the World Cup final. We saw Germany destroy Portugal in the third place match last night. It is a shame Germany didn't get to go to the final, but we were really glad they were there to take Portugal out.
We enjoyed the Wimbledon finals-- we really liked everyone who made it this far, so we didn't mind who actually won. The Women's final was good-- I was rooting for Mauresmo, so I was happy with the results. The Men's final was tough to watch. We just love Nadal, but are also fans of Federer. I was satisfied with Nadal's performance (lets face it, he is easy on the eyes), but Mike was hoping for more of a challenge against Federer.
Back after a break- Federer wins his fourth Wimbledon and Italy adds their fourth World Cup on a long day in front of the tv. Not an easy game to watch at some points and though I (Mike) didn't have anything really invested in anyone, I did pull for an upset from Nadal and a fitting end for Zidane's French side. Both the Spanish player and the French side were surprised a little to be in the a final at all...
After a decent first half that at least saw some scoring, France played a stronger 2nd half among 22 guys noticably exhausted after a grueling month of matches. It seemed for a moment, after the shock of seeing Zidane land a massive headbutt into the chest of Materrazi (wasn't that the name of the choir leader at Holy Spirit?) that nothing made sense. Later, it felt like we'd entered an alternate future, one where Zidane is sent off in disgrace and France loses on penalties- instead of the one playing in my mind where Zidane's brilliant header goes past Buffon and France wins in normal time. Again, I'm not a huge Francophile but I just wanted want to see a better match.
There is no excuse for acting like that in front of billions of people; it was a brutal hit that shamed a great carreer. That said, there is more to the incident than meets the eye- in 1998 Zidane stomped on the back of a Saudi player after alleged repeated taunts about his Algerian background; he was later suspended from Juventus for several games for another headbutt. We will probably never know the content of the provocation- but for me, though it was embarrassing and low, I still want to believe in Zissou.
3 comments:
If you can take the profane hip-hop soundtrack here is a 5 minute highlight reel of Materrazzi's typical behaviour:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5142970568688502787&q=Materazzi
-Mike
That name "Materrazzi's" was someones classmate in Holy Spirit. I never could pronounce the name right and now that I see it spelt, I can. Thank you youngest child.
I will defer to Bill and Jim on the spelling and the pronunciation, they each had a Matterazzo in their class.
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