Italy Wins World Cup

In a brilliant match, Italy beat France on penalty shots Italy made all 5 shots in the shootout after 120 minutes of footbal yeilded a 1-1 tie. The big story of the match was Zinadine Zidane being sent off after headbutting Italy's Materazzi after he allegedly called Zindane a "dirty terrorist."

Zidane, of Algerian decent, was playing in his last football game after one of, if not the, most distinguished careers of any French player in history. Zidane had scored the first goal of the match on a penalty shot. Ironically, he was not eligible for the penalty shoot-out which France lost.

I had the pleasure of seeing the match at the Reigrovy Sady beer garden in Prague (Vinohrady) with at least 1,000 other people. It was standing room only by kickoff, and by half time there were probably 200 people standing. I was lucky enough to get a table with a partially obstructed view about an hour before kickoff. There were large contigents of French and Italian nationals in attendance.

Groups of italians paraded around after the game, singing and jumping. Some of them probably continued that until morning.

The good news for the U.S. is that the U.S. team scored their only point in the group stage by squeezing out a draw with Italy. Italy beat every other team they faced in the tournament.

Congratulations Italy, I completely underestimated you this year. At least I wasn't alone.