My new favourite footballer:

Toni. Good ole Tone. Toni the guy from down the pub, big Tony, il barrista, Megatone (proud sponsors of boca Juniors?!). How do you say Couldn't Hit A Barn Door in Italian? Toni 'good in the air'. NOTE: He doesn't 'have a good touch for a big man' he is just 'good in the air'. I eagerly await a compilation of his misses in this championship on youtube. By the end of last night's match the commentators had stopped exclaiming TONI THORUGH ON GOAL TONI! and reverted to muttering 'a ball through the middle but there is only Toni there to collect it'. Poor Toni. The highlight of last night was Big Tone's attempted bicycle kick. It was like watcing the tallest kid in your year trying his hand, and feet, at ballet or contemporary dance. As he pirouhetted with the grace of a wilderbeest on stilts he contrived to miss the ball by, literally, metres, before wrapping his back leg round at an impossible angle, and then falling over, his front leg flailing in spastic homage as to what the manouvere should have looked like. Toni, we will miss you. Not since Peter Crouch has there been a player so blessed with inadvertent comic potential. Call it the curse of a tall footballer.

Despite a love of all things Italian (apart from fascism, mummy's boys, and roman catholicism of course- these three things are not necessarily linked) I for one was glad to see the back of Italy last night. They are the only team in the world who can plausibly think '0-0 with 15 minutes to go- everything is going to plan'. I blame the Romans. Who, in warfare, were famous for withstanding the charge, waiting for their opponents to tire, then decimating them with a sucker punch. Those tactics live on, in the form of Italian football, to this very day. Thankfully the fickle god of penalties (or godess) swapped alliegances again last night. Good for the rest of us, who, while we like the Italians, and are not beyond being jealous of them, like to watch teams actually try to score during 90 minutes from time to time.