Four excellent matches in four days in the World Cup Round of 16. Game reports are being updated daily on “Soccer Watch Online“; here’s a look ahead at the quarterfinals:
Friday, June 30. Germany-Argentina, 10am: The hosts vs. the best-looking team of the first 10 days; it’s a desperately unlucky draw for one of them.
Italy-Ukraine, 2pm: Should be a laugher for the Italians, even without central defenders Nesta and Materazzi.
Saturday, July 1. England-Portugal, 10am: Even puking up his guts throughout the second half, Beckham was England’s best player against Ecuador; they’ll have to be much better here, though Portugal will miss red-carded Deco.
Brazil-France, 2pm: Rematch of the 1998 final should be a thriller.
Talk all you want about Fabio Grosso’s “dive” in the box against Australia. Sorry, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the Italian flair for the dramatic. Consider this week’s developments in the match-fixing/refereeing scandal. First, on Friday, investigator Francesco Borelli ordered four clubs – including champions Juventus and Silvio Berlusconi-owned AC Milan – to appear before a sports tribunal starting this Thursday. (Juventus could be stripped of the Serie A titles they won in the last two years, and demoted to Serie B and possibly Serie C.) The venue? Rome’s 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium, of course. La Scala was presumably booked.
Then, on Tuesday, former Juventus player Gianluca Pessotto, now the club’s team manager, apparently threw himself out a window on the top floor of the club’s headquarters. The popular 35-year-old former defender is in stable but serious condition; he was found clutching a rosary, having fallen some 50 feet from a dormer window in the building’s roof. Does this country have a sense of style, or what?
This article appears in June 30 • 2006.