Day 24... Italy out of the cup...

We arrived at the "Park and Ride" at 11:45 which was 4 hours and 15 minutes prior to kick off... As previous games had taught us, there is no problem arriving too early, but sometimes it can take up to 3 hours to get to a stadium... On this day, it took about 15 minutes...

So we arrived at the stadium 4 hours early like a pair of dickheads... Serves us right for doing what we were told... There were maybe 5 people there when we arrived and about 5000 security staff... I was sick and so in no mood to drink, otherwise the 4 hours could have easily been filled... Instead it was filled with nervous anticipation, boredom and quite a bit of walking around...

From about an hour before the game, the crowd started to fill up and we could get on with the business of watching Italy qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament...

We all know, now, that wasn't to be, and the Italian team served up the same shit for 75 minutes of the game... Then, in the last 15 minutes, scared of being humiliated, they decided to play... And play well they did... They scored 2 and if the referee's assistant knew his job it would have been 3, and a draw... They would have made it... But on the balance of play, they didn't deserve to go through...

The whole thing angered me also... If they were capable of playing like they did in the last 15 minutes, then why did they spend so much time serving up that awful crap... If they had played like that the whole time, they would have won each game about 3-0 and would have been feared by the rest of the teams... Instead, they were a laughing stock, and I spent a fortune coming all the way here to bring my Dad to the games...

I will have more chances to see World Cups (e.g. every 4 years), but the old man is over 60... Unless they play the World Cup in Australia (which looks increasingly unlikely with all the bribery scandals etc.) he may never get a chance to see the old country play again... His anger was directed at the disallowed goal, and it was much less than mine...

Oh well, there goes the 2010 World Cup for me... I had a TST 5 which meant that as Italy were out, I could follow the group winner, Paraguay... I decided immediately that I didn't want to go and see any more games live, but as always, I would watch every possible game on TV...

Left the stadium devastated, and get to a queue for the "Park and Ride" bus... 25 minutes later, we got on the bus... Couldn't find the car in the car park, that took about 40 minutes or so... So, overall, the getting home took an hour and a half...

Got home to watch Japan dominate Denmark and for them to show the rest of the World Cup how to kick the Jabulani properly...