Azzuri but lots of Asterisks

Well, well, well. The ghost of Roberto Baggio's 1994 miss (photo, left) in Pasadena's Rose Bowl has finally been laid to rest. For the first time since 1978, Italy finally found a way to "beat" France in a major competition.

Instead of the team which chose to play and try to win by attacking, the brutes and bores triumph.

Instead of adhering to the FIFA directives to banish racial slurs and hatred from the game, one of your World Champions uses it as a tool to incite one of the game's greats into a disgraceful sendoff.

Instead of calling the rules, refs continue to call results.

Instead of backing up the integrity of the game, once again as in 1982,
the Italians are rewarded for match-fixing at home by lofting the Cup.

On the positive side, your new World Champions, after having run a succession of the most impotent corner kick routines in World Cup history against Germany and prior, finally hit a couple nice ones. One of these, by the match's hero and villian, Materazzi, ripped the nets. Nine minutes later, another rattled the crossbar.

But, sorry, one man's opinion, France deserved to win this game.

Forget the 51st minute mugging in the box that should have been whistled as a second PK against the team whose country brought you the Mafia. It was the French spirit and possession throughout the second half that created scoring chance after scoring chance. Sure, Italy got one good trap, turn and shot off on goal after intermission -- when the forward settled the ball with his hand, the third blatant handling by Italy ignored in the match to that point. And the delays and diving? Despicable.

Second only to Brazil in number of Cups won?
Truly, travesty lives in the beautiful game.
Long live ugly soccer.
Enjoy your "victory", as well as life in Serie B and/or C.....

P.S. USA 1 Italy 1.

As with all the content of this blog, written and photographic, Copyrighted 2006, All Rights Reserved, Perry McIntyre, Atlanta, GA - USA.