And the winners are gli Azzurri. I missed the first half, alas (coulda sworn it was starting at 3), which was apparently Italy's better performance. But they hung on, even tho it was clear they had nothing in the tank by the end. I'm pretty sure Italy made it through the tournament w/o giving up any goals that weren't penalties or own goals. It does kinda suck that it had to come down to penalty kicks. Unlike Brazil v. Italy in 1994, tho, I thought this was a pretty exciting game. But I suspect that, in addition to being physically exhausted, the knowledge that penalty kicks are looming has got to shut things down towards the end of overtime. I'd think that knowing you'd have to go on with sudden-death periods until someone scored would increase teams efforts to score. Otherwise when you get to the last few minutes before PKs, it's nothing but standing around, ball control, and head-butts. Seriously, WTF?!? Univision (like the ref) missed it completely, only cuing up the replay after they noticed Materazzo lying on the ground. I rewound several times -- just couldn't believe what I was seeing. All I can say is that's a pretty fuckin' punk rock way to end your career. (stay classy, Zizi!)

forza Italia!