A little bit of trivia ahead of tomorrow’s final. For the next few days at least (until the verdict comes down Monday morning), Juve will be able to boast that they own 12 players who were on World Cup Finals rosters. In case you were wondering, Arsenal have the most, with 15, followed by Chelsea with 14 and AC Milan with 13.

Remarkably, a full 8 of the 12 Juve players are on either the Italian or French rosters, 6 of whom should expect to start. The starters are Buffon, Cannavaro, Zambrotta, Thuram, Vieira, and Camoranesi, with Trezeguet and Del Piero not unlikely as subs. This is surely a very impressive feat for the Italian champions (and future denizens of Serie C); clubs with transfer budgets take note!

The trivia question: can you name the four (4) players owned by Juve who aren’t in the final? In in the interest of fairness, one is on loan with another club. The first one to answer correctly (and try not to cheat) will win an official F.C. Camena ringtone (.wav recording of me singing “So Are We Drinking” into my computer’s microphone).

Good luck!

I take it all back.

I’ve said some not-so-nice things about the Italian team and their fans over the past couple weeks:

For the avoidance of doubt, this Italian team was complete crap. Before minute 75 (when our guys completely ran out of gas), their offense consisted entirely of lobbing the ball towards Toni and Toni trying to fall down. I remain shocked the game didn’t end on a dubious penalty in the 89th minute. They’ll likely advance, but they will beat no one of consequence. There’s just no there there. June 19, 2006

That Italian team was a disgrace. Their supporters should be ashamed. June 17, 2006

And, this little charmer:

I will never root for an Italian team again. They were a disgrace, and I will cheer their eventual defeat at this tournament. June 21, 2006

So, to summarize, I was completely wrong about the Azzurri: they’ve beaten the most consequential team in the tournament, the hosts, and looked like anything but a disgrace in so doing. Admittedly, much of the above vitriol came out of the USA-Italia match in K-Town. I didn’t see Italy play Ghana, and missed their game against the Czech Republic as well. In retrospect, it appears that the USA game was the Italians’ worst effort of the tournament. They played without style or imagination, and seemed to do a lot of falling down. And I was steamed — I thought the USA deserved better that night. Also, this filthy Italian guy spat his blood at me.

So I was pissed.

And today, I take it all back. Not only do I appreciate how well this team has played, but I will be proud to root for them in the final. My reasons:

(1) The scandal back home: this deserves more words than I’m going to give it, but the fact that these guys have played this well in the face of the IMPENDING COLLAPSE OF ITALIAN FOOTBALL which will FORCE MOST OF THESE PLAYERS TO CHANGE TEAMS IN THE NEXT WEEK (Fire sale at Juve! Everything must go!) AND SEE FRIENDS SUFFER SERIOUS PENALTIES cannot be discounted. These guys had plenty of built-in excuses for trotting out a lousy performance (certainly a bunch more excuses than Brazil), and yet they’ve been focused in every match. Maybe the scandal back home was what they needed to come together as a team (insert appropriate cliche here).

(2) They have played against stereotypes: yes yes, everyone loves to give Italy grief for playing boring, defensive football. This team hasn’t skipped the defensive part — Fabio Cannavaro and Gigi Buffon have been spectacular, and the team has only conceded an own-goal against the US — while also managing to score a bunch of goals (11 total). Only Germany (13) have scored more — and they’ve had an extra game to do it. Even cooler: the 11 goals have come from 10 different players. They’ve managed to do this with a dodgy striker (LucaToni hasn’t been very impressive) and a hobbled playmaker (Totti). Against Germany, right when you expected Lippi to bring on defenders to try to lock the game down, he kept introducing strikers. Catenaccio? Not so much.

(3) We drew with them: a minor point for sure, but if the Azzurri win, the USA will have been the only team to get a result against them. Pitiful, I know, but it’s something.

(4) They did us all a favor and beat the hosts: the one thing I kept saying when I got back from the World Cup two weeks ago was how remarkable the home-field advantage actually is. After sampling the atmosphere at the tournament, it didn’t surprise me one bit that four European teams made the semits, or that a non-European team hasn’t won the tournament in Europe since 1958. France’s win in 1998 made a lot more sense. And, most of all, I was convinced it was going to be next to impossible to beat Germany — if only because of the power of the crowds. So when the Italian team hung on for 120 minutes against the hosts and had the courage to not only keep playing but win the game in the 118th minute, I was stunned. That took more than talent — that took courage and guts. The Azzurri had every opportunity to fold in that game, in the tournament’s loudest stadium (where Germany had never lost), but they kept fighting. They earned that game with every ounce of their souls. And that’s pretty compelling.

(5) The cool White Stripes thing: Daaaa-da-DA-da-dah-duuuuuh-duh. Daaaa-da-DA-da-dah-duuuuuh-duh. Seriously, I can’t get enough.

In conclusion, I’m pulling for the Azzurri. I am a hater no more. I gots no beef with France, but this Italian team has charmed me.

Forza Italia!

I’ll be honest, I had France crashing out in the Group Phase.

Despite the fact that the core of this French team had won two major trophies (The World Cup in 1998 and the European Championship in 2000), I couldn’t really get over their performance in the more recent championships. And when I saw that they were going to be trotting out the same-old-same-olds for this World Cup, well, it didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Which, in retrospect, is a bit silly. I mean, it isn’t like Patrick Vieira, Claude Makalele and Thierry Henry aren’t among the best players in the world (with Henry making a pretty convincing case for being the best player in the world this past season). I had heard rumors about the Ribery guy, but didn’t really just how impressive he was. And I certainly didn’t expect Willy Sagnol to play like such a superhero. (Seriously, why aren’t more people talking about Sagnol? He owned, in succession, Roberto Carlos and Cristiano Ronaldo? What does he have to do?) Sure, Barthez/ Balles has been his usual erratic self (and probably has one more major blunder in him), but he’s gotten away with it so far.

Which all leads up to Zizou. This game tomorrow (as the media never tire of reminding us) is likely his last. While he probably isn’t the Zizou of 1998 (or even 2002), he’s still Zizou. The technical ability (fancy Euro term for his amazing ball skills) is completely ridiculous. And with Ribery out there, he doesn’t have to worry about running end to end. He can just quarterback the France offense from 30 yards out and do little tricks to make sure the ball finds its way to the right people. There were rumors that the French teams in 2002 and 2004 suffered from identity crises (other folks thought it was their time to be the big dog). Not so this time. Everyone’s deferring to Zidane, and it seems to be working perfectly. Most importantly, Zizou seems pretty intent on winning this tournament, which, if past data means anything, suggests that Italy will have their hands full tomorrow.