Holy shit bros. Today was pretty intense... I feel like this is the closest thing to a blog post I've written so far. Guess I'm getting comfy, huh? Anyhow... God if I've cried today. My nerves are wrecked, but crying it out comfortably is very very helpful. Yep, it does leave you with Brock's eyes for a while and a huge headache, but your spirit will be cleansed afterwards, that's for sure. The reason why is IRL stuff that I'm not comfortable sharing online, but I'm confident I'll come out on top yet again, some way or another.

In other news, the Italian national football team decided to shave off a bunch more years from my lifespan (which, according to my genetics, should be almost coming to a close LOL). I won't say it in a flowery way: we SUCK, and we SUCK PRETTY HARD. I can't really defend the way we played through this EURO group phase. Against Albania we were kinda decent, gotta say, but Spain is crazy good compared to us, literally on a whole another level, and we owe it to our goalie, Donnarumma, if we didn't get out of that match with a Germany-Brazil kind of score.
Once you start actually following football a bit more seriously, it's pretty clear that the real challenge is to have people coming from way different clubs and coaches actually mesh together and synergize. This is what I'm not really seeing right now. Players are in roles that aren't exactly the ones they're comfortable with, and most of them are playing in a different position/strategy. It's all a bit goofy, compared to what I see throughout the Serie A season with Inter and its well-oiled strategies by our beloved demon Inzaghi. National teams have very little time to "oil the mechanism", not to mention that Spalletti, our coach, had very few matches to try and find a balance, since he was appointed in that role.

That said, today's match against Croatia wasn't as atrocious as it looked to me the first time around (yes, for some reason they're re-airing it and I'm watching it again as I type...), I have to concede. The only thing it was atrocious for was my health. Getting a penalty against us, elder God Modric kicking it and being negated by Donnarumma only for him to score a minute later in an admittedly beautiful way (guy is a legend, there's nothing to say against him). Then, a whole second half of agony during which Spalletti threw shit to the wall hoping something would stick... and at the NINETYSEVENTH MINUTE Zaccagni was the one who stuck, transforming Calafiori's assist into an amazing goal, which was enough for us to qualify. I repeat, NINETYSEVENTH (97) MINUTE. That's enough to send any supporter to heaven in one fell swoop, and I don't mean it as "because of happiness", but because of heart failure.

Also, boy, if Calafiori goes on this way, he might be a little new great talent. I'm all for it. For now, Twitter seems to be split between people thirsting over him (gotta admit he's a cutie) and people saying he isn't that good. I do see a great player, just hope he will keep at it. My heart is always with Barella anyway, he's my favorite player ever. I'm glad I got to see him play in my lifetime. Sure, Zanetti was an absolute class act, but Bare's a little Sardinian devil and his plays make my eyes shine with awe.

Still... I'm afraid the one thing I'll remember other than the goal, in the future, will be this one shot. I will leave any comment to you all.

...UNTIL NEXT TIME