Its been dismal. Just dismal. The second day of life without football has been a horrendous ordeal without end in sight until I saw an interesting article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) about how Bastian Schweinsteiger (or Schweini as he used to be called, which means "Piglet"), had made several combative statements regarding the Argentinians and the infamous brawl that broke loose after Germany had beaten Argentina on penalty kicks in the 2006 quarter-finals. So far it had only been the Argentines who had been making a lot of noise about how they were going to get revenge for last time. Maradonna had even crooned that he would post a team line up that was "guaranteed to beat the Germans".
Up until now you would have gotten the sense that the team from South America had legitimate reasons to be aggrieved. In 2006, La Albicelestes looked invincible. They cruised through the opening round with such ease that it seemed like they weren't even trying. Messi carved through defenses like a hot knife through butter. Their last game against The Netherlands was a draw because the team, having already qualified, was resting up their stars. Despite some troubles against Mexico (again) only pulling out a win in over-time. Still, all signs indicated that they were going to crush the German team, whose success in the tournament had generally been contributed to the well known "Host Phenomenon" and not having had to face a significant challenge.
The match started out as the most thrilling we had seen in the tournament so far. Ayala scored for Argentina in the 49th minute, just before the break, and La Selección carried themselves as the rightful victors for the rest of the match. That is until Miroslav Klose equalized in the 80th. Suddenly, the Argentine confidence (or arrogance depending on whom you ask) evaporated. The next 12 minutes plus resulting over time were perhaps the most tense and intense moments of my football viewing life. In the end it went to penalty kicks. That is when the trouble started.
The Argentines were pissed. They felt like they should have finished the Germans off by now. These scrubs were getting in the way of their rightful destiny, forcing them to go through the rigmarole of a penalty shoot out. To make matters worse, the Germans were starting to get into their heads. Between turns, Jens Lehmann kept looking at a mysterious slip of paper. What on Earth was on that slip of paper? Why hadn't these guys given up yet? Michael Ballack later claimed that the Argentine's were starting to verbally abuse German players as they went up to take their turn. The Germans retaliated, when Tim Borowski then shot what would eventually be the winning goal, he trotted past the line of fuming Argentine players and put his finger to his lips, essentially shushing them. After Lehmann held Cambiasso's shot and ended Argentina's march to destiny, tempers boiled over.
With all respect to Argentina but FUCK YOU and all your talk of revenge! You think you were cheated? How? This is football and sometimes games are won through penalty kicks, not by "who was destined" or who was "obviously the better team". If the team was so much better, they would have won during regular time!! Your teams petulant temper tantrum cost us our best mid-fielder for the semi-finals. We want fucking revenge you arrogant, egomanical fucktards! Guess what, you're not destined for shit! You are not football gods, just a bunch of hopped up, too pretty for their own good, whinging, half Italian ranch hands!
Saturday cannot come quickly enough.
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