So your team didn’t win the World Cup. Chances are you got robbed along the way (perhaps you got an unfair second yellow or straight red from some Oscar-inspiring Spanish theatre), but maybe, just maybe… your team wasn’t that great.
Like anyone else, in the run into the World Cup, I infused myself with the idea that maybe Portugal was overdue for some GOOD luck. OK, maybe meeting England in two straight tournaments was good luck, but we’ve gone out of every tournament since World Cup 1998 bar EURO 2008 with a spot of bad luck… a quick review:
World Cup 1998: Portugal is ahead against super power Germany, a win that would’ve assured Portugal a spot in World Cup 1998 (for the first time since the disastrous, player-strike-marred 1986 World Cup). Rui Costa is called off the pitch for a substitution (one that took just 22 seconds for crying out loud!) and is shown a second yellow, and subsequent red card, leaving Portugal to attempt to fend off the Germans… sure enough the game ended in a draw and Rui Costa still remembers this moment as one of the lowest points in his long-spanning career.
EURO 2000: After an amazing group-stage that included coming back from 2-0 to beat England 3-2 and thrashing a full-strength German squad with what was essentially a B-team, Portugal cruised to the semi-finals, and found itself in a golden goal scenario with Zie French. A ridiculously called handball on Abel Xavier later (the ball and the hand were both beyond the end line and the ball’s trajectory wasn’t even close to going towards goal or an attacking French player) and France win via a spot-kick.
World Cup 2002: While the squad was definitely a bit over-confident about their group and tons of scandalous news came through about the squad’s preparations, multiple balls against the woodwork in the final game against South Korea by Sergio Conceicao that on any other field, on any other day, would’ve gone in meant another unlucky tournament exit for Portugal.
EURO 2004: If losing a game when your opponent only gets one shot on goal and it happens to go in isn’t a spot of bad luck I really don’t know what is!
World Cup 2006: A light foul on Thierry Henry in the semi-final sets up Zinedine Zidane for the game’s only goal via a spot-kick.
EURO 2008: Deservedly out against a superior German squad.
World Cup 2010: Despite being played off the pitch by a superior Spanish side, it’s hard to look past an irregular goal by David Villa and Capedevila’s shameful acting to get Ricardo Costa sent off in the final minutes of the second half. The guy took a bag of ice for a fake injury for crying out loud!
So back to the subject. Your team failed to win the World Cup… what now?
Here are a few options:
1. Look forward to EURO 2012.
2. Pretend the Copa America is anywhere near as hard to win as the European Championship. (It does produce better football – I’ll admit to that, and that alone.)
3. Denounce yourself from the sport.
4. Assassinate Sepp Blatter. (I don’t condone such actions… but…)
5. Hope your club team fares better. (If you’re a Liverpool supporter perhaps you might want to avoid getting your hopes up!)
6. Play Football Manager until your addiction rating reads along the lines of; “Death is for mortals, FootballManager is for managerial Gods”.
7. Drink alcohol. If done correctly this should numb away the pain of never ending sorrows.
8. Smoke a cigarette. Avoid Marcello Lippi-esque cigars; those are for winners, you don’t want to be thinking that that cigar could’ve been had at the end of a World Cup victory, do you?
9. Pretend to be Spanish. (Read: be proud to be the least-scoring champion of all time, and one that will go down in the books as having gotten enormous outside help.)
10. Avoid people who follow football closely and proclaim to your friends that your team DID win the World Cup. (Just make sure you edit the Wikipedia page to correspond to your ambitious lie and you’re scot-free!)
Now I said this is a double-header (I love hyping up my own articles if you can’t tell), so I’m including a review of my day during the World Cup final…
9 AM: Wake up, hungover. My mouth is swollen from a salivary stone (who the hell knew you could get a salivary stone?). I have church in two hours. My prayers? That Holland deny Spain an undeserved World Cup conquest.
10 AM: Drifted asleep again. Get up and get ready for church.
11 AM: In church.
12 PM: Still in church.
1 PM: Just getting out of church. A little meal and I head off to make small talk with my old doorman on Wall Street while I wait for a pair of friends who will be watching the game with me at Cipriani’s Hublot-sponsored screening event.
2:15 PM: My friends arrive and we head to the Cipriani’s Ballroom. Confusion arises. I’m told I’m not on the list (obvious b/s from someone with a hidden agenda). Upon further pressing I’m told that I AM on the list (what a huge turnaround from the same worthless piece of… you know) but that I need to be sharper dressed. (Apparently if your name isn’t Steve Nash you need to be wearing a dress shirt, unfortunately for this punk, he didn’t know that I have friends in the area who will gladly let me borrow a dress shirt.)
2:30 PM: My friends head to Killarney Rose on Pearl Street to watch the first half while I go to my friend’s place to change. I miss 30 minutes of the half. Upon reuniting with my friends I’m told I didn’t miss much. Sure sounds like a World Cup final now…
3:20 PM: Armed with a spiffy shirt I make my way back to Cipriani’s. Lady at the desk (not to be confused with punk-character noted before) tells me I don’t have a +2… ????? A phone call later by the lady and I’m inside with my friends and chatting with the IT manager of the New York Red Bulls.
3:30 PM: I’ve given my ‘props’ to Steve Nash for writing an excellent foreword for a mediocre ESPN guide to the World Cup. (I say mediocre because it didn’t really have any information that would’ve helped you with THIS World Cup, it was mainly a World Cup history… and a pretty shoddy one at that, but his foreword was flipping fantastic.) Second half commences, I’m drinking beer even though I probably shouldn’t be mixing it with Ibuprofen. Screw it, a gypsy psychic told me I was going to die of old age and it would have nothing to do with my liver.
3:55 PM (or thereabouts): Arjen Robben proves once again that he has no right foot. Easily could’ve chipped Iker Casillas but chooses to go for the left pocket. Casillas charged him perfectly but left himself open to the chip-attempt. Arjen Robben apparently isn’t as great as he was in the Champions League tournament this past season.
4:15 PM: I’m mildly drunk, one of my other friends has managed to get into Cipriani’s… Actual Dialogue:
Me: … How’d you get inside?
Friend: Do you know how many times I’ve been to Cipriani’s?
Me: (thinking to myself: uh… including today? One?) I see.
Around this same time, my friend (or facilitator, agent, PR person?) has pitched my graphic design abilities to a person from Lord and Taylor. He also assumes that I had no clue I was talking with the IT Manager of the Red Bulls. He then tells me… er… tells the lady from Lord and Taylor that I’m releasing a ‘LookBook’ on Friday and that I have to make a Red Bulls shirt. (I still don’t know what a ‘LookBook’ is, and I don’t know how he decided on a deadline for a project without consulting me first… or explaining what the hell a ‘LookBook’ is.)
There’s the 5 minute break for extra-time with the score still at 0-0 so I sneak out for a cigarette. I come back in to a scolding from the IT Manager about how I should quit smoking. The score is still 0-0 but I missed… something? I get another beer.
4:30 PM: Still 0-0. Second-half is about to get underway. IT Manager tells me he’s meeting with Niko Kranjčar and Luka Modric (both in town for a friendly tournament at Red Bull Arena). He also says any time I want I can get a meeting with him and a certain figure that would be of peculiar interest to me. (I figure it’s smarter I don’t reveal too many details, heck this is probably a little too much already.)
4:35 PM (or thereabouts): Spain score. Sneijder is sent off via a ridiculous second yellow. Spain is about to win the World Cup by doing what they’ve done best: Cheat… this calls for inebriation.
4:45 PM: It’s over. Jesus Christ, this is reality. Spain is the 2010 World Cup champion. They are the least scoring champion of all time. I blow into a vuvuzela for the first time in the entire tournament: I feel like a traitor. I’ve bemoaned the damn instrument’s existence until now. I still do. Thank God this thing is over. I couldn’t take another badly officiated match, another retarded striker who can’t understand that to score with this ball you need to be striking it cleanly and without as much power, or failing that, going for low-shot lower-90 efforts. Diego Forlan is my MVP of this tournament, one of the few that didn’t complain about the ball. In the words of the IT Manager: He figured out the jubalani.
4:45 – 6:00 PM: The crowd starts to slowly leave Cipriani’s. My friends, woman from Lord and Taylor, IT Manager, and about 10 or so other people remain until the bitter end, drinking.
7:00 PM: I’m outside Nevada Smith’s with the worst-looking replica World Cup trophy I have ever seen. There are scores of Spanish fans around. I bet half of them aren’t Spanish but rather ‘Latino.’ Which leads me to my next point. After the years of historical rape and pillage, why is it that South American nations have practically no form of indifference towards Spain? Portugal which did a bit less on the rape and pillaging front, still gets plenty of scorn from quite a few Brazilians, yet Spain enjoys almost complete love from their former colonies? This doesn’t make any sense. Another thing that doesn’t make sense… having an Argentine reffing a Portugal-Spain match. (I’m still rather bitter about our exit, forgive me.)
9:00 PM: I’ve drunk more, my mobile has died. I’m tired.
12:00 AM: I wake up at home. (?!?!) I have a text from one of the girls I met reading: “…DRUNK” Of course this was sent at around 10:30 PM and my text back goes unanswered. Damn you, the one good thing that could’ve salvaged this day that has been marred by Spanish victory goes wrong too…
The next day is consumed by reading about the final, looking at pictures of Spain’s celebration. It makes me sick. So sick. Rio 2014 it is then. This time, I’m going. I have accommodation covered by my friend who works at the South Street Seaport’s family and friends. All I need is transport and alcoholic funds… maybe food too, yeah that might be a good idea.
Reporting from the trashed Portuguese DeathStar: This is Paulo Pincaro, over and out!
Written By Paulo
Pincaro
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