Why Italians Celebrate...

It seems like any time I see some clip from Serie A, if there is a goal the entire team explodes in the kind of celebration we are used to seeing in footage of VJ-day, or something. Dudes are pulling off their jerseys to show the messages emblazoned on their undershirts--referees are pulling out yellow-cards. The water boy runs off the bench in a back-flip.


Osvaldo gets excited for Roma, but Lazio still wins in the roman derby

I wonder why they make such a big stink from it? Even a penalty goal--which in the old days was always considered poor-form to celebrate--will get the same orgiastic response.

Well, this weekend of the 10 games played in the Italian league, a full half of them ended in 0-0 draws. By contrast in Spain only 2/10 ended goal-less. In England, Germany and the Netherlands, none ended scoreless. As for France, well, nobody watched the games so who knows how they ended?

The kind of defensive stranglehold that has become emblematic of the Italian style of play can be tough to watch. It's like a bad juju contest. For ninety+ minutes, let's get nasty. In the Italian philosophy of the game that came to dominance in the 50's and 60's, the ideal result for a game was a 1-0 win off a single goal scored as late as possible.

No, wonder they party like it's 1999 when it goes to the back of the net.

Yesterday Barça played Racing Santander and soundly outplayed them, winning 3-0.

Leo Messi was genius on the pitch, inspiring loud 'bravo"'s with each magnetic possession. The rest of the crew is still tenuously in and out with this dang'd epidemic of muscle tears.

God bless the child that's got his own...


Messi; Four sweet touches before the ball meets the ground


*** (added on October, 18)

Miroslav Klose, the German star that has signed with Roman team Lazio, has disassociated himself publicly with banners that were drawn in Nazi-esque old-German fonts.

The banners read "Klose mit uns," a play on the military mantra used in nazi Germany, "Gott mit uns [God with us]."

Lazio has perhaps the most outspokenly pro-fascist fanbase in Italy, and their ethical alignment with the WWII idea of Germany is not so surprising. Neither is Klose's willingness to run away from the pairing.

This is the thanks he gets for scoring in Lazio's 2-1 win over Roma?

How long will Germany be seen through the prism of the second world war, which ended 66 years ago?

Well, it was a doozy...

But the war is still something that Germans get their faces pushed into, like a dog into his filth by a cruel master. The wrong-doings we've done; and the goals that we meet, they get weighed and tainted through the resonance of our achievement.

As a stain and glory you wont let go.