After what by all means should be labeled as a cultural day, crowned with a visit to Villa Manin (where Napoleon cruised around and gave away North East Italy and part of Croatia to Austria in exchange for some nice islands and recognition of France as a country) and the art exhibition The Age of Courbet and Monet, where some fine Impressionist art was hanging (among them the painting Poppies in the field by Pál Szinyei Merse (1845-1920) which immediately became one of my favorites of all time) in a great palace it is now time for a day of sport ('Una giornata sportiva'). Here is the plan:
15:00 Udinese - Lazio @ Stadio Friuli
18:15 Snaidero Udine - Carimat Pavia @ Palasport Carnera
20:45 Juventus - Milan @ the sofa a casa.
Only thing left now is a another cafe and then to wrap a Udinese scarf around my neck and venture out in the frigid temperatures that seems to follow me during my Christmas travels. Tomorrow I head north and back to Amsterdam which I hear is one big snow disaster. Oh, what joy!
This is not a blog about football. It is about life, beauty and art and thoughts. Yesterday these concepts were suddenly aligned with both each other and with football. When Chelsea's blue knights rode over the green grass of Anfield Road, encouraged by a Dutch coach and a forcefulness in midfield from Ballack and Essien, it was worthy of a war scene in a Hemingway novel. As a Chelsea fan the games against Liverpool have carried with them something special after all the Champions League meetings. Yesterdays game surprised by being an open affair with both teams initially creating all sorts of problems for the defenders in both teams. Spanish pretty boy Torres looked like he would make the evening a sad one for us Chelsea fans when he cleverly sneaked in between the Chelsea defence and midfield to score 1-0 early on.
Chelsea forced their way into the game, mainly due to some key tackles from Ivanovic, and a midfield that found all sorts of space between a Liverpool team that struggled to find their normal Anfield swagger. Chelsea created more and more chances, with Drogba being wasteful before Ivanovic, possibly the most under rated Chelsea player around, hit the red army hard two times. Anfields red warriors suddenly looked like a group of school boys trying to pick a fight with some older and stronger guys. Gerrard was hanging with his head and Fabio Aurelio had no control over Kalou on his side. In the inner midfield Essien and Ballack paraded as if they had just conquered the city of Liverpool, giving no space for the reds to create any pressure. Drogba scored 3-1 after Ballack's through ball which cut through Liverpool's already badly wounded defense to Malouda who, with the French touch Foucault use in his writing, hit the ball perfectly to Chelseas own Napoleon, Didier Drogba, who came conquering in his African cornrows like his sole goal in life was to kill that football. And I almost almost spilled all the beer at the table at Tara's in excitement after seeing the best Chelsea performance of the season. The fact that I know way too many proud Liverpool supporters made the taste almost as sweet as a Whopper Meal while hung over. Good times.
You might remember the poster containing a rooster on fire dressed in a Priest outfit, hanging over my bed, I told you about before. On another wall in my little room I have a poster where an old picture of George Washington is half covered by an image of a transvestite(?). You can see it in this post. I bought it at the very nice De Jong Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I’m not sure why I enjoy it so much, maybe it’s the black underwear, or the great ideas one gets if imagining George Washington as a transvestite. Here you can see all of Deborah Oropallo’s pictures in this series, mine is the one titled ’George’. There is also a great one of Napoleon, he had good calf muscles. This blog is a certified Oropallo fan.
