38 Days 'til Serie A Season Opener

So the Azzurri went to Confederations Cup. At first, all was well and it looked like they were going to the final, mostly because of this guy:




That would be Giuseppe Rossi, Jersey Boy. Beppe/Joe may or may not be transferring to Juventus this summer. I wouldn't know, because I'm not following the transfer rumors any more. He really is a good player. He belongs in Serie A, not playing for some third or fourth best Spanish team. Joebeppe had a great game against the USA. And also, there was a red card for a hard foul on Rino that gave him a wicked wedgie that he didn't bother to clear. (That's what you do with wedgies, right? You clear them?)




There he is, number 8, showing off his hamstring and glutes. It was an excellent game, although Loooca didn't score, which brings his streak to, I don't know, something like two years without a goal in international play.


And then the Azzurri played Egypt, which is a far inferior team, although not a terrible team. There's a reason Egypt keeps winning the African Cup of Nations. Their goalie was awesome. He played with a bloody rag wrapped around a seeping head wound for most of the game. A real tough guy. Yes indeedy. But the Azzurri lost. Here you see idiot Il Mister Lippi looking pained and Rino exhorting his boys to excellence from the bench:



Rino does not look happy, does he? But he's always en fuego, which is why we love him, and why he was Dirtbunny's first call up.



And after that, the Azzurri had to play Brazil, which are currently number one in the FIFA world rankings. The Azzurri were probably going to lose, but geewhiz it was going to be a humdinger of a game! Only it wasn't. And then we started thinking, well, damn, all you need to advance to the quarter finals is score one measly goal, even if you end up losing the game. They can score one measly goal. Only they couldn't.

Gian and Sleepy both on their backs while Robinho (Roe-bean-yo, not Robbin-hoe) uses them both utterly. Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.

And so does this:

[Rino looking on in stunned, pained disbelief while the rest of the bench tries to look invisible. How could his boys suck so bad?]

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The end result of all of this is that the Azzurri got knocked out of the tournament in the group stage, and the USA advanced. And then there were some exciting games with USA versus Spain and USA versus Brazil, and they were good to see, but they weren't the Azzurri. And because the Americans were playing, ESPN dropped the knowledgeable and entertaining broadcast teams of Tommy Smyth/Derek Rae and Adrian Healy/Robbie Mustoe in favor of some blathering idiot American commentators, so we were all deprived of excellent commentary as well as Italian futbollers. It was too sad.

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We are trying to fill the holes in our hearts with Le Tour de France brought to you in glorious high definition by Versus HD. There aren't any hot Italians, but there is a hot Swiss guy with an Italian name, and there's as much Lance Armstrong as any human being could reasonably be forced to bear. There are also some club friendlies coming up next week, to include our big trip to Baltimore to get impregnated by Sleepy--I mean--to see AC Milan sans Kaka kick some Blues of Satan buttocks. I might make it, if I knit more.

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Tangent: You may not think I proofread this, but I do, although not very carefully. Up there in the bit about the Egypt game, I started out with "There goalie." Does that make your head hurt? Mine too. I fixed it right away, to "They're goalie" and went on my merry way. Are you screaming inside with the dissonance? It's horrible, isn't it? Imagine if your job entailed spending all day reading crap from idiots who can't get their "it's" and "its" together! Anyway, because of the glories of proofreading, I caught my mistake in time. You're welcome. I don't know where it came from. I don't normally have trouble with this.