World Cup 2006

World Cup fever is impressive in Europe. Every night, you walk by a cafe, you see the TV turned on to a match. No one in the ristorante or caffè is talking; their eyes are glued to the game. It's more of a national pride deal than the Olympics, from what I gather.

It's actually harder to understand what is happening with Italian football (calcio, soccer, whatever you want to call it) over here because I can't really read the newspaper headlines very well. However, from what I understand, maybe it's better that I'm not reading the major papers:

If the Americans wonder what the world thought of its awful debut, the
Italian newspapers were not kind. Corriere della Sera gave the United States a
rating of 4 out of 10, the lowest of the early matches. It accused the Americans
of making "banal, old amateur errors."

Mostly, the Italian news media has written about Saturday's match as if
understatement will bring a red card. La Repubblica said, "If we are playing to
save the face of Italian soccer, they are playing to save the pride of the
little boys and girls in oversized shorts who in the fall invade the suburbs
chasing after a ball."

Not to be outdone, La Stampa wrote that the match for the United States
is "a question of life or death, like when Custer attacked the Indians."