Thursday, July 13, 2006
World Cup 2006 is finally over, actually over in like coming to a week already...
Initially I wasn't supporting any team, till like the quarter finals, which I'm more supportive of Italy. Watch the final match between Italy and France, I would say France played better in the second half and the extra time. Italy was busy defending against their enemy, but in the extra time something happened between the fine line of angel and devil which let to a great loss of team spirit to the France team. Italy won with good hardworking skill (not to forget mentioning some acting skill :P) and a bit more sheer luck than the France team.
During the on-going world cup matches, I read in the newspaper about the curse/spell of Italy and found it to be interesting and coincidential. The spell of Italy sets that Italy would always make into the World Cup Final every twelve years except a year which was postpone due to war. And 2006 coincides with the 12 year cycle that they have. The second spell, or more likely to be charm was accordingly to the Chinese zodiac, in the year of the Dog (which 2006 is), the winners of World Cup has always been Italy or Brazil. And since Brazil got kick out by France in the quarter finals, I'm actually starting to believe that maybe some force out there is arranging Italy to be the winner this year.
And looking at the setting stage that Italy in, Italy wasn't in a aggressive team in the qualify match, perphaps the most aggressive in the qualify was Australia. In the quarter final, even better, they were pitching against Ukraine while other teams were having a hell time winning the game. (ie. England vs Portugal, France vs Brazil). The match against Germany I find the tatics was beautifully played by the Italian coach Lippi, giving a surprise spring attacking the door of Germany. Eventually he played with the right card and won the World Cup.
Back to the final match, the other issue that caught the attention of the whole world would be the case of Zidane head butting the hooligan player Materazzi. It really draw the line between good and evil. And in my mind this chinese phase "一念仁, 一念魔" comes into my thought which also depict the good and evil, but with more descriptive.
It can be translated as the fine line between angel and devil is within split seconds of the thought. Today Zidane just released his reason for the action. It was confirmed that Materazzi has tauted him with violent insults to his family repeatly. Boiling to the limit of tolerance, the anger from Zidane erupted and caused him to become the devil and did the head butt action.
In ending this article, probably this quote from Jean-Louis Murat, France singer and fan of Zidane was aptly...
"Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer."