Italia!!

I watched the last 15 minutes of the game last night. We had gone to watch the spectacular River Dance show in downtown Dublin and as we walked out of the music hall, there was a huge LCD screen on the other side of the street with about 100 people watching the game. And that final 15 minutes turned out to be the golden moments. I was so amazed how the most logical team of the world (Germany) can be crushed in the matter of a few seconds. They did not really cared the importance of the last few minutes and forgot their typical conservative approach to football and that was all Italy needed. That was a proof to unpredictability of football. Although I liked to see Germans play in the final, but Italy's brilliance (Irish effect on my language :)) was so sweet.

And we saw a great moment of joy among the Italians on the streets of Dublin. Hundreds of them were carrying flags and singing. This was a memorable World Cup for me to see the real picture of football crazy Europe.

At the middle of all those celebrations, it came to my mind: despite all the globalization and actually in the heart of Europe which is all about removal of borders and unification of nations: We observe this much of patriotism in football among nations. That's a good hint to the politicians and business circles: There is something underneath all this unified Europe and that's the identity of each individual nation which still sits on top of everything.