Euro Eulogy: Italy... Arrivederci

Look at you, dancing on their little graves.

Ding. Dong. Blah. Blah.

Hell, Andy Gray was openly rooting against the Italians in the dying moments of Sunday's quarterfinal match and going so far as to wish Cesc good luck before his spot kick.

He made it. You happy now?

I'm sure you're all as thrilled as the boys in the Castro that Torres and Villa and Xavi are all still alive. Did you think they'd crumble? Did you think they'd lay down and die? Oh no, they will survive.

Well, fuck all of y'all and the collective horses you rode in on.

Sure Italy played "negative" football (Whatever that is, I mean, were they unscoring goals? Was it negative nil - negative nil at half, or at full time? And if Spain was playing positive football wouldn't the pitch have imploded upon itself?) but put yourself in Donadoni's shoes.

And, first, realize how lucky you are to be in such a nice pair of Forzieris. Yeah, chicks might even talk to a dickhead like you in those.

Okay, now look up from your sweet shoes and at your roster. Your best defender, the guy who two years ago shut down the entire world? He's out with an injury he suffered in training before the tournament even started.

Now, from cards, you've got no Andrea Pirlo, the best midfielder in the squad and your only creative linkage to your forwards, and gone with him is Gennaro Gattuso. He's a little over rated as a player, but he's a fucking bulldog and he looks like he is going to will the team to victory alone by singing the fucking anthem.

Fratelli d'Italia,
l'Italia s'è desta.

Fuck yeah, she has. Makes me wish the other half of me was Italian. Now let's play some fucking futbol.

I know they don't give points for singing your anthem, but if they did, the Eye-tals would have about thirteen of those stars over the scudetto on the Azzurri shirts. Shit, they'd be out of space. They'd have stars running all the way to their armpits.

And it's not just the players. Even the hot Italian ass in the crowd sings like they're gonna have to blow the corpse of Il Duce if they don't belt one out with every fiber in their incorporeal soul.

Anyway, you're still Donadoni. Now after looking at what you don't have, you look at what you do have.

Your best scoring threat looks like he skipped out on special ed class to be on the pitch. He also plays in Germany. Here's the list of top two scorers in the Budesliga this year:

1) Luca Toni
2) Mario Gomez

They combined to score zero goals against actual soccer players in the Euro. Here's how crappy the Bundesliga is: you know who finished third in scoring?

3) Wizard Cat (all the way left... the bunny was the goalie for Schalke 04).

But, you do have probably the best keeper on the planet. So Donadoni did what any fucking sane person would—play to his strengths.

Shit even an Italian can figure that one out, probably didn't even need to watch the tape of the Russia v Spain match from the group stages either to do it: "Well, No Cannavaro, no Gattuso, no Pirlo, no fucking prayer of winning an up-and-down affair. I can get run off the pitch 6-1 and never coach again, or I can try to suffocate the Spanish attack maybe generate a chance or two to score and escape 1-0 or, if not, take a chance with PKs."

And it worked for ("I'm Dave Kendall and you're watching... ") 120 minutes. He took it to the coinflip, and eh, he lost.

So, sorry if you fucking precious sense of the aesthetic was offended by what happened on Sunday, but there was a soccer match to be won. And you'll have to excuse the coach for using, you know, tactics and shit to try to win it.

Hell, Turkey does the same thing—sucks the life out of a game—and you all jump on their bandwagon like they are giving away hookers and Furbees.

So go on with your selfish little celebrations, but maybe just take a moment to consider the following. First, you should be thanking the Virgin Mary in your taco shell that Italy eliminated France. The French had actual dynamic players with talent and couldn't do shit. They was fucking painful to watch

Second, we might not be champions of Europe, but we still get to hang on to our moniker of World Champions for a couple of more years. Call me when Spain, or Turkey, or Russia, or anyone not named Brazil has one or four of those to call their own. Yeah, that's the sound of my phone not ringing.

Dead my ass.

Only for this tourney.