The Greater Toronto Area is World Cup football-mad. They have been in the grips of The Fever for a month. Go near any bar with a TV during a match and expect to hear screams, yelling and much madness issuing forth during a game.
Italian fans get jacked up before the match. I’m not sure on what, perhaps espresso, but having a good time is the key. When Italy wins, the air is filled with the sounds of car horns and yelling that you can hear on the fourteenth floor.
The last time I heard that kind of fan support was a few years ago in Sardinia. I was doing an IT job for the US Navy in La Maddalena out in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy.
Sunday morning of the Italian Grand Prix race a strange little gang assembled in the bar of the Hotel Villa Marina. There was the hotel owner, a grizzled ex-Italian sailor, two women of alternative orientation from Austria, the cook and myself, glued to the TV in the bar. The owner, seeing he had race fans in his midst, served us pharmaceutical-grade espresso and delicate Sardinian pastries all afternoon, compliments of the Hotel Villa Marina.
The race was fine: Michael Schumacher ran away with it and won the World Driver’s Championship. Perhaps a minute after the checkered flag, you could hear the cars and scooters roaring up and down the streets, honking their horns. Fans were screaming, yelling and waving huge Italian and Ferrari flags. This went on for a half hour and eventually petered out, until you went to Admiralty Square and saw the party continuing in the bars and coffee shops. There is nothing quite so wonderful as Italian fans in full song.
In a few minutes the final of the World Cup will be over. Right now it is 1-1 Italy and France tied. We’ll see.
RoadDave 