eccola, ecco—AAAHHHHHHHHH!!! VAFFANCULO!!! FIGLIO DI MIGNOTTA!! STRONZO!
CAFONE! TRA-DITORE! Madonna... Ah, Dio mio, perché, perché, perché, questo è stu-
pido, è una vergogna, la vergogna... Che casino, che bordello... NON HAI UN CUORE,
ALBERTINI! FAI FINTA! Guarda, non è successo niente... Dai, dai, ah.... Molto migliore,
Albertini, molto migliore, sì sì sì, eccola, bello, bravo, anima mia, ah, ottimo, eccola adesso..
. nella porta, nella porta, nell—VAFFANCULO!!!!!!!
Which I can attempt to translate as:Come on, come on, come on, Albertini, come on... OK, OK, my boy, perfect, brilliant, bril-
liant... Come on! Come on! Go! Go! In the goal! There it is, there it is, there it is, my brilliant
boy, my dear, there it is, there it is, there—AHHHH! GO FUCK YOURSELF! YOU SON OF A
BITCH! SHITHEAD! ASSHOLE! TRAITOR!... Mother of God... Oh my God, why, why,
why, this is stupid, this is shameful, the shame of it... What a mess... [Author’s note: Un-
fortunately there’s no good way to translate into English the fabulous Italian expressions che
casino and che bordello, which literally mean “what a casino,” and “what a whorehouse,” but
essentially mean “what a friggin’ mess.”]... YOU DON’T HAVE A HEART, ALBERTINI!!!!
YOU’RE A FAKER! Look, nothing happened... Come on, come on, hey, yes... Much bet-
ter, Albertini, much better, yes yes yes, there it is, beautiful, brilliant, oh, excellent, there it is
now... in the goal, in the goal, in the—FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU!!!
Oh, it was such an exquisite and lucky moment in my life to be sitting right in front of this
man. I loved every word out of his mouth. I wanted to lean my head back into his old lap and
let him pour his eloquent curses into my ears forever. And it wasn’t just him! The whole stadi-
um was full of such soliloquies. At such high fervor! Whenever there was some grave miscar-
riage of justice on the field, the entire stadium would rise to its feet, every man waving his
arms in outrage and cursing, as if all 20,000 of them had just been in a traffic altercation. The
Lazio players were no less dramatic than their fans, rolling on the ground in pain like death
scenes from Julius Caesar, totally playing to the back row, then jumping up on their feet two
seconds later to lead another attack on the goal.
Lazio lost, though.
Needing to be cheered up after the game, Luca Spaghetti asked his friends, “Should we
go out?”
I assumed this meant, “Should we go out to a bar?” That’s what sports fans in America
would do if their team had just lost. They’d go to a bar and get good and drunk. And not just
Americans would do this—so would the English, the Australians, the Germans... everyone,
right? But Luca and his friends didn’t go out to a bar to cheer themselves up. They went to a