- Juan Montoya's giving up his multi-million dollar Formula 1 salary to go race in circles against redneck yeehaas in NASCAR ('You one of them Mexican niggers, boy?');
- The dude who played Lister in Red Dwarf is a crack fiend; and
- It has been discovered that there IS a fish 'n' chip shop in Dunedin which doesn't specialise solely in fucking turgid rubbish along the lines of 'lard soaked in more lard'.
CAMPIONE, CAMPIONE, OLE OLE OLE-O
(Italian for 'Cop that you bastards')
The final of Germany 2006, the 18th World Championship of football. Olympiastadion, Berlin. The stage was set. The teams - Italy vs France. The maestros - Zidane vs Totti. The custodians - Buffon vs Barthez. The scrappers - Gattuso vs Vieira. The coaches - Paul Newman vs Woody Allen (though some have suggested Domenech looks more like Eugene Levy). France, winners of their last three international finals; Italy, who've made every third World Cup final since 1970 on a streak that ran loss, win, loss... next?
THREE COLOURS BROWN
Already, as soon as the exchange of handshakes and anthems, there were questions about the French tilt. Why the away strip? Whose idea was the bogus French flag on the front anyway? How does Zizou get that sweaty before the game's even started? What's that shit on the side of Ribery's face? And why do the French play the Brisbane Lions club song before kickoff anyway? ("We'll kick the winning score... You'll hear our mighty roar...")
Minutes after kickoff the French TGV was derailed again, this time by lead and only striker Thierry Henry, who picked that precise moment to roll out his uncanny impression of Ronaldo ten minutes before kickoff at the final of France 98. Usually it had the boys rolling about pissing themselves, but noone seemed to find it that funny this evening, so Thierry scraped himself off the carpet and went about his business.
INSTANT KARMA'S GONNA GET YOU, ETC
And then, not more than seven minutes into the match, Italy's dodgy penalty karma from the Socceroos round-of-16 game finally caught up with them and bit them solidly in the arse. It would be a bit of a stretch to call it instant karma, arriving as it did some 217 minutes of football after the original event, but it was a case of dodgy penalty karma if there ever was one. Malouda, the French number 7 jinked and slithered between two defenders, sliced his way into the box, and dived headlong across the turf. The only thing he forgot to do was put his Superman cape on beforehand. Nevertheless, Alas-poor-Yorick-I-knew-him-Horatio Elizondo reckoned it was too legit to quit and pointed to the spot. The presence on the near touchline of Spanish dive connoisseur Cantalejo (aka Stevie Wonder's seeing-eye-clown from the aforementioned Italy-Straya knockout game) suggested the sniff of a square-up. At best, it was almost a penalty. Zidane seemed to acknowledge this by almost fucking up the spot kick completely.
If it was a square-up, Italy deserved it. However, Marco Materazzi, who'd 'conceded' the penalty, didn't. His slice of payback pie came twelve minutes later, rising to meet a curling Andrea Pirlo corner and heading the equaliser from short range. Most impressively he managed to do this by ascending above Paddy Vieira, which usually requires a stepladder if not crampons and oxygen gear.
THEN SOME OTHER STUFF HAPPENED
The stoush settled down after that to the sort of arm wrestle everyone expected - Italy playing long balls to try and get around the French domination of midfield, the sole area on the park where the Frogs had an advantage over the Wogs. The second half saw Paul Newman bring on the largely useless Vincenzo Iaquinta largely for his height in the box, having seen the havoc Materazzi and Toni were capable of wreaking - indeed Toni had a legitimate goal ruled out for a teammate being offside (but fairly borderline as to whether he was 'active' or 'passive' under FIFA's new interpretation). Paddy Vieira tweaked a hammy and the French had to bring on some random bloke out of the crowd called Aloof Diarrhoea or something (known for his length of the field runs.) The rest of regulation time was a postage-and-handling spectacular as the killer B's in goal, and the woodwork flanking them, conspired to prevent any further goalscoring.
33% MORE AT NO EXTRA COST!!!
Funnily neither side saw it like that. More of the same in extra time... with one small exception. Calmly wandering back towards the centre of the park after nearly taking the lead for France with a blistering shot, Zizou took minor exception to something that Marco Materazzi said, or did, or a combination of the two, and... nutted him one. There's been speculation that Materazzi called him a terrorist, or gobbed on him, or said his sister enjoyed relations with sailors, but to be blunt - who gives a fuck. It's irrelevant. You're the highest-paid professional footballer on Earth, captain of your national team, in the biggest game in the world, your last ever game of football, fifteen minutes from penalties, and some lanky streak of merda calls you a rude name. What do you do? Do you (a) ignore him; (b) tell him he has beautiful eyes; (c) tell him his sister roots like a rogue elephant, largely because she's the size of one; or (d) nut him one and get yourself sent to the showers for a bit of a sob? If you answered (d), you are a fucking idiot and you probably have just lost your nation the World Cup. You may as well change your name to Herschelle Gibbs. At least you won't be a Scrabble clue anymore.
God alone knew what went through Zidane's head (other than Materazzi's rib cartilage, near enough) but his brain explosion left the French a man down for the rest of extra time... and more crucially, a senior penalty taker down for the shootout. Make that two, with Paddy V clutching an icepack to his arse and going Oww oww oww a lot.
SIX INCHES: TURNS OUT IT IS ENOUGH AFTER ALL
David Trezeguet wasn't having a good world cup. His coach Woody Allen had spent the entire tournament fixated on the idea of playing 4-5-1 with his rival Thierry Henry as lead striker, and Trezeguet wasn't getting a run, other than a token couple of minutes at the end of each game. Even with Henry exhausted and cramping up having run his arse off for the entire final, trying and failing to get the better of Cannavaro and the Italian back four, Trezeguet still wasn't getting a boarding pass into the match from Domenech. Finally, with Henry basically in need of paramedic assistance, Trezeguet got his chance. Meaning he had about five minutes as lead striker of a ten-man side with no midfield leader. And then the professional benchwarmer with probably the lowest confidence of anyone out on the field, was asked to take a penalty in the shootout. His shot sent Buffon the wrong way, hit the underside of the bar, bounced straight down and landed no more than six inches on Italy's side of the goal line. France lost the World Cup by six inches. Six years ago Trezeguet won the European Championships for France against Italy, almost singlehandedly. Today he lost the World Cup, almost singlehandedly - with only the helpful input of Zizou and his brain explosion to save his blushes. Serves him right, the little shit.
Last shot. Richard Fidler stepped up. If ever someone was carrying the weight of dodgy penalty karma, it was him. But the footballing gods smiled on him, as they had the whole tournament. He nailed it.
Italy, clinical to the end, had nailed all five of their penalty shots and had claimed the Golden Turd. Man of the match: Take your pick from Pirlo, Cannavaro or Gattuso. That twelve-year sequence from 1970 through 2006: loss, win, loss... win.
Cue the Socceroos Nation: We coulda been a contender...
The Doctor is out.
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