FORZA ITALIA!
June 30th, 2006
I’ve resisted the temptation to post about the World Cup on the blog the last couple of weeks, but today I am very happy because the side I support, Italy, has advanced to the semifinals after beating Ukraine today 3-0. Italy will take on host nation Germany in one semifinal match next Tuesday. (England and Portugal and Brazil and France play quarterfinal matches tomorrow to determine the other semi.)
Now, you may ask, how does an American kid ends up rooting for Italy? It’s simple really: Adolfo De Cagna, my father. My father, who was born in Italy, emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s and passed away five years ago last Friday, sparked in me a love of the game that endures to this day. We were season ticket holders for the greatest American soccer team ever, New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, for several years in the late 70s and early 80s and I still support, Juventus, Italy’s most successful club because my father was a fan. And while you wouldn’t know it looking at me now, I was pretty good soccer player as a kid. Eventually, I gave up playing to focus on school, but I’ve never lost my love of watching well-played soccer.
You may have heard something about the scandal that is now rocking Italian soccer. Suffiice it to say that the next few years may be very difficult ones for the top Italian soccer clubs, their players and their fans. Like me, my father would be appalled by what has happened to the game he loved in the country of his birth, but he would be very proud of the success that Italy’s national side has enjoyed so far. I very much want Italy to win this tournament, so it will become the first European nation to win four World Cups. (Brazil already holds five, the most of any nation.) But more than that, I want it for my father, with whom I would love to watch just one more game if I could. I know he is watching from where he is, and loving every minute of it.
FORZA ITALIA!
UPDATE: Brazil, the Wicked Witch of Soccer, is OUT at the World Cup after losing today to France. All I can say is YEAH! Now, if Italy can beat Germany, we’ll be good to go!
Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Random Thoughts
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Association exec Ben Martin, CAE is P.I.’s Architect of Participation. Jeff and Ben help clients harness the power of the Web through the strategic application of social tools.
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