Italy is a wagon again, and I don't care if you think otherwise

(Yes, nearly a six month hiatus of me not posting a blog. I am not sure if that is because I have lost interest, or lost time, I like to think it is the latter, because as you all know, discussing sports is my true passion.)

Not getting the opportunity to watch the first two matches of the knockout stage was difficult. Not that I don't have time to watch arguably my favorite team on one of the largest stages, but rather, while at work, I don't have the opportunity to watch.

Not getting to watch a 3-0 victory against Turkey and 3-0 victory against Switzerland, made it easy to believe that Italy might be a fraud. I hate to use the F word, but beating up on Xherdan Shaqiri and Merih Demiral (who scored an OG) is no great accomplishment. Similarly, sweating out a 1-0 game against a 10 man Wales made it easier to believe that Italy wasn't the team they were showing up to be. However, going nearly 11 straight appearances and going over 1000 minutes without being scored on shows who Italy truly is a defensive power... even without (O Captain! My Captain!) Giorgio Chiellini.

Defense is the backbone of this Italian soccer team. "Defense wins championships", and if Chiellini is able to regain his health sometime in the coming weeks leading up to the EURO 2020 Final, I believe this team could go on to the championship... It all depends on how quickly our captain recovers. Beating fast-paced young talent in Belgium or Portugal in the next round will be no easy task without Chiellini, but our defense seems to be going strong giving up only ONE* goal in the last nearly 1200 minutes of play.

*If you believe that the Arnautovic offside in the 65' min was a goal, you don't understand the rules of soccer, much less how much VAR comes to haunt any and every Cinderella goal.

(the only clip I could embed was in Spanish, so suffer through it and listen) Fast forward to :45 of that clip and tell me Arnautovic wasn't a half-step in front of the last defender... I saw people on twitter saying "he was only 6 inches in front of the last defender". This is where people start to forget about the rules of sports because they want the underdog to win. The rules are the rules. If the VAR assistant decided he was .0000001cm offside, guess what, he is still offside. Imagine this in a different sport, "my toe was touching the 3pt line, but the ball was shot from behind the line". "Well sorry, the rules are the rules", and as previously stated, VAR is and will come back to haunt every team.

I just want to be happy once this summer. The Avs were the best team in hockey, and they are forced to play the second best team in hockey in the second round because of covid reformats, the Nuggets have the regular season MVP and our starting PG and SG go out with injuries weeks before the playoffs. All that promise just for my heart to be ripped out by stupid covid restrictions and health... and now, Italy has the chance to actually win the EUROs and people are putting an asterisk on a win because a goal got called back by VAR???? HELL NAH! There is no asterisk, we are a W A G O N again and are going to qualify for the next World Cup (hopefully)

Also, shoutout Federico Chiesa for scoring.

.... and that was talking soccer.