Un Tango

Oy. Painful. I watched the Argentina-Deutschland game in mute (cause I was working) and it was unendurable. A great match, but terrible to have to be decided by penalties. And where the hell was Messi? Why was La Pulga out of the game? WTF? Then goalie Abbondanzieri leaves his post because of a terrible zets to his ribs. Yikes. But both teams showed greatness, except that the Panzers are much cooler under pressure.
That idiotic melee at the end of the game seemed to be a very nasty case of sore losing, which is inexcusable.
The Italians wiped out the Ukranians, easily and breezily and with their fabulous goalie Buffon (in Spanish that means "clown") saving some balls and hitting himself quite hard on the head in the process.
They came to the semis courtesy of a terrible call by the ref, which seemed to have been paid for la cosa nostra, but redeemed themselves today playing with skill and smarts against an Ukranian team that seemed incredibly inexperienced. There are teams who went home, like Mexico, Trinidad and Ghana that are better than that, in my humble opinion. What do I know?
Now, Italy is going to play the Germans and it may be a great game, if the Italians don't decide to win by hitting or doing operatic melodramas like they've done before. And it almost seems like a forgone conclusion that Germany will advance and perhaps win the Cup in their home turf.
Hopefully it will be Brazil-Italy. The Brazilians are adorable but, today, Univision showed Ronaldo's 15 World Cup goals, and it looked to me that except for the semis and finals, Brazil always has it too easy at the beginning, playing teams like Costa Rica and Turkey and Ranchipur. I wonder, if they had to fight harder from the beginning, would it be the same story?
Still, bless 'em, I'm rooting for them.
I had to rely on live play by play blogs in the internet, to get my bearings. I missed my crazy uncles from Univision screaming and telling us they went to the red district in Hamburg and how terrible the b.o. of some of their African colleagues the day England played Ecuador was (I kid you not).
The Guardian play by play blog is funny, shrewd and well written (by someone named Georgina! at least today). It captures the game and has personality. She was so rooting against the Germans...
The New York times blog play by play blog is not as smart.
The comments of the Guardian fans are always soccer related. The comments of the people reading the NY times today were a pissing contest about whether LA or NY is the capital of the world.