Yesterday at the World Cup, Italy made me utterly embarrassed to have a name that is so flagrantly Italian! Proud as I am of being un italiano, their performance against New Zealand was the stuff of nightmares and passport changes. Dirty and (s)crappy football the New Zealanders may have played, but the Italians only have themselves to blame for such a pathetic result.
I still think Italy will make it through to the next round, by the way - scraaaaaaaping through, once again...anyway...
I can only say today THANK GOODNESS I'M HALF-PORTUGUESE!!! Italianissimo my name and surname may indeed be, with my entire paternal side italiano, but whilst my maternal side is decidedly more 'mixed' (with everything from German to French to Danish - and more - thrown in there), it is predominantly Portuguese. I lived in Portugal for a few years, even finishing my high schooling there, had countless holidays in beautiful Lisboa and Cascais, grew up surrounded by Portuguese food, music and language, etc etc.
Enfim, I have claims to my Portuguese heritage. Relief.
Because today Portugal were frankly STUNNING in their 7-0 annihilation of North Korea.
What a display of finesse, of beautiful, flowing and attacking football - and, well, undoubtedly THE performance of any single team in a match in this World Cup thus far.
I even had love, even affection, for Ronaldo today - and that's saying a lot.
North Korea pushovers, huh? Yeah, well, they had tons more possession against the highly fancied Brazilians than they did against Portugal, and Brazil could only muster a 2-1 victory against the plucky Asians in the end.
Portugal deserved all the goals they got. Portugal deserve all the praise they get. They were sublime.
Can they build on the momentum? Are they now one of the true dark horses to take it all the way? Who knows. Frankly, who cares. Today they made their own history and they gave this World Cup ever so much more magic.
PORTUGAL!!! PORTUGAL!!!
VIVA PORTUGAL!!!
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