by Gianni Truvianni

Created on: November 29, 2008

Italy had won by beating Norway 1-0, after which I was pretty much sure they had qualified to the next round, specially since even third place teams could go through or at least 4 out of the top 6 could do so. Of course, there was always the possibility they could loose to Mexico but I doubted this was going to happen, as I figured if worse came to worse they would tie and go in as a third place team. This incidentally being the place they held in the group after their second game.

Time had come to sit back and enjoy the world cup and by this I do not only mean the games on TV but the world cup atmosphere that had been created by this tournament along with all those fans from literally all over the world who had come to see it. This plus the fact that summer had just started in the United States, gave a sensation of real world cup excitement, added to that already international scene New York was so famous for. In a way; every group of fans, thanks to the way they celebrated brought their country over to America.

I; in the days that followed Italy's victory over Norway decided to explore the city of New York, feeling almost like a tourist in my home town, seeing all those fans from all those countries that had qualified and some from countries that had not but were there just to enjoy the games. There was the Norwegian and Swedish fans with their Viking hats that included horns on the sides, reminding me of characters from Wagner's "The Ring", Brazilian fans with their yellow and green and samba music, Argentineans always with their big drums, Germans, Mexicans, and many others.

All of which making this world cup a big success; who many so called "experts" had said would not be given that the United States did not have a tradition of football, and many other reasons. In all this however one thing had been overlooked and that was that many Americans would be cheering on the country of their parents or in some cases grandparents, as was mine with Italy, which was precisely what happened to keep huge stadiums packed. As a matter of fact; USA 94 set the record for the largest attendance at a world cup and this despite not having either England or France qualify. This also a record which still holds out despite three world cups having been played since; all of which had 64 games as opposed to "USA 94", in which only 52 were played.

I basically went around to soak up not only the sun during the time that followed Italy's game against Norway but to meet some of the fans

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