Joel Retornaz and curling (Forza Joel!)

In the last few days, I have read a great article on the Washington Post about Curling.
Funny enough, my country, Italy, discovered a new discipline with the Winter Olympics. During the competition, Raidue, the Italian TV, usually shows the Italian curling team once a day.
Three weeks ago, nobody could have forecasted this!

Thanks to the Italian most famous curler, Joel Retornaz (by the way, he was indeed born in Switzerland), who has been defined by the WP "a celebrity built in less than a week", almost 5 million people watched the winning game with Canada.
Before the event, there was less than 500 people playing curling in Italy....
By the way, Italy had never before qualified for an Olympic curling tournament; we were at Torino only because Italy was the host country.

Maradona jr is playing for Internapoli

I did not update my blog for a while.

But now, I have great news.
Diego Armando Maradona jr has finally decided: he will play for the Internapoli. Internapoli plays in the 6th Italian division (so called Excellence division). In a recent interview (Kiss Kiss radio Naples), Diego junior said that he wants to demonstrate to perform well in his city. He also mentioned that he loves Naples and Naples soccer team. In the near future he hopes of being able to play in the blue jersey (i.e. for Napoli calcio). He has started training with Internapoli since the beginning of 2006, and he believes he has made the right choice for his soccer career.

Indeed, as mentioned by Carlo Nesti, a famous italian journalist, he has turned down several offers from better teams (for instance, Acireale, in C1 Serie, third division, Lecco, in C2 Serie, fourth division, Angri, in D serie, fifth division.

For a complete background story of Maradona jr, I would recommend you to take a look at Wikipedia.

Totti and the Soccer World Cup

Everybody here in Italy is really upset about the serious injury that could block Francesco Totti, the Italian Soccer star, playing for Italy at the 2006 Soccer World Cup.
The Roma playmaker got a tackle from behind by Richard Vanigli and twisted his ankle during a game with Empoli.

Initial assessments said the player would not see action again for two or three months.
I am positive that our capitan will recover from that injury and he will be ready for the game, but I am really questioning why Italian referees do not punish with harsh punishements (i.e. red cards) these kind of behaviours.