The taste, smell, touch, vision, feeling.....of victory!

Do i need to describe the feeling? The euphoria? The tears.... My italy!!!!!!!!! woo hooo!! They got out of that jinx... that 'we never win a match that goes to the penalty shoot-outs' jinx. But everything else, sticks to history. The power of history sort of dawned upon me last night... 1982 repeated. And i sat and cried in jubiliation...i jumped...i screamed.... Italy reach the finals once in 12 years, and they win alternately. Thats history. Italy lost out on penalty shoot outs, but definitely not in this one! Thats history broken! Its hats off to Cannavaro (the best defender i know), and Pirlo (who has such style in midfield), and Gattuso (mr.agrressive), And Del piero(here's class), And toni (record striker, and one hell of a smile, but didn do too well), and Camoranesi(rough!!), and Grosso(the man who scored that winning goal), and Matterazzi(the man who made dear Zidane let his team down,and the one who scored that first goal), and De Rossi(one more penalty), and the wall - Buffon!(world's most expensive goalie...in Nil's words, he counts money with those hands...he better save the goals! And he did... a great job!) And lastly, but not the least, coach Lippi. His startegy clicked... wow. And to the others... totti, iaqinta, perotta, zamborotta, and whoever's name that must have just slipped.... :D

The extent to which people around you believe in your team sometimes makes so much of a difference. And the people who made me believe italy were going to lift that cup... Nilesh (with all his flashnews and his own startegies to how italy are goin to play!), Sathya (who actually told me that i might have been azzurri by birth for one of my comments! That made me smile like hell), Nitya (who kept saying, just wait and see, they're going to win. Relax...), Sandhya (who made me call her and scream each time italy scored!), my dad (who sent sms' from kenya to say 'fantastic goal divs' like i'm the one who trained the team!)and sathya uncle (who again, sent sms' from kenya sayin go italy! and reminded me that kenya's always italy crazy)....Its been great watching the world cup with each of you guys! Thanks a million for making this fever work.... and thanks to Nik, tsb and anu who always kept the comments section of the blogs alive with football fever!! And ofcourse, Sukanya, for being as excited as me, and sincerely discussing each and every match we watched over the phone, during half time and after full time! You've been great company suk! :D

Its over.... and how much i've loved this past month, i cannot tell. Football's been in me since kenya... where it is like what cricket is to india. I grew up playing football, dirtying my white uniform with red sand, and watching it too... coming to chennai sort of stole that away from me... but i love espn for telecasting the worldcup this year... thats maybe the best thing thats ever going to happen to me this year! The month of june, and the first 9 days of july... magic. Football magic, azzurri magic. I'm going to miss it so terribly.... And its been so easy making conversation with anyone under the sun this one month! All one had to do was say 'hey did u watch yesterday's match....' blah, and the rest would follow! No more of that :( well... we all have to move on i guess! Heaven knows where i'll be and what i'll be doing when this happens again... but i'll watch it. South Africa calling!

The Azzurris worked their magic.... and i still remain charmed :D

Yours "ITALY WON THE FIFA WORLDCUP 2006 and it feels euphoric"ly
Signing off...