Oh Zenadine, how could you disappoint them so?

9 July - Woke up pretty early in order to try to find somewhere to watch the football in the morning. Had hoped to go to Fets but they don't take bookings and even though I got there half an hour before the place opened (almost two hours before the game started) the queue was halfway up the block. Commercial Drive is pretty much the Little Italy of Vancouver and the city seemed to descend on force on the street - any place that had a TV could guarantee a packed house that day. I'd pretty much decided to support France, if nothing else, because they had nothing to do with Australia being knocked out of the tournament and any other team I had the slightest interest in were already gone. The Continental ended up beingthe place to watch it - tucked away with a tiny bit of standingroom at the back, no air conditioning made it like an oven but at least I had a decent view of the screen. When the first goal was scored for France the reaction of the café was excited enough to make me think that the supporters were pretty mixed but once Italy responded it was pretty clear who the crowd and the entire street were with. Very exciting game again - right down to the wire - I really want to know what that guy said to Zidane which prompted the headbutt - I know the stress of such an important game can get to someone but to cap off your career like that one has to presume it was a pretty nasty thing that was said about young Zenadine's mother. The café and the entire street pretty much erupted after the fifth penalty goal - half of commercial drive was completely shut down and all the surroundingstreets were full of cars and trucks full of Italians (and a shedload of people who'd just jumped on the bandwagon - not that there's anything wrong with that) waving Italian flags and blasting their horns. The Drive was packed full of people all in italian blue with a couple of sedate French supporters scattered around - enjoyed the scenery for a while before giving up on it - didn't open up the streets again for at least four hours. Sometimes its good to live on the Drive.