South Africans have this word, “Ubuntu”, for the concept that we are all interconnected. There has to be a Spanish equivalent to it because the stars from Cataln’s Barco team and the stars from Real Madrid aligned perfectly for Spain’s thrilling finale to 2010’s Copa del Mundo.
We watched this one at home on ABC and our little tv while sipping a World Cup drink that first learned about four or five World Cups ago. That would be about twenty years. It has become our tradition. The recipe was in the paper and it may have included other ingredients but the way we do it is: Wine (inexpensive Spanish Red), lime juice and sugar, served over ice.
We watched Saturday’s runner-up game out in East Rochester, Rochester’s Little Italy, at a place called “Lemoncello”. They have a little café like setting in the front of their building with fresh Italian pastries and a cozy dinning room, bar and stage in the rear. Most the people in this place were watching the game outdoors on the patio on a big projection screen. We nixed that idea right away because the picture was sort of bleached by the sun. They also had a merchandise table out there with t-shirts, jerseys and warm up jackets for most of the big teams, Italy being one of them even though they were eliminated so quickly. We watched the game on a big shiny Panasonic in their dining room while eating calamari. This was a great game with Uruguay coming from behind to go ahead before losing to Germany who we earlier had became convinced were going the whole way. But when Spain took on Germany in the semifinals we quickly realigned our allegiances to our post US favorites, España.
After the game I tried on the Spanish warm up jacket and Peggi took a picture. There was way too much polyester there for me to consider it. I settled on red, yellow and black España T-shirt and Peggi announced that she had a premonition that I must wear this shirt until the game in order for Spain to win. The shirt was a little snug and I was worried about putting it in the dryer so I asked if this meant that I had to sleep in it. I didn’t. When we walked the morning of the game I kept the white T-shirt on that I had slept in. And then, well before game time, I put the shirt on. When it was still 0-0 in the second half I began to worry ithat I had jinxed the team and at the end of regulation I was certain I had. With four minutes left in the second overtime Spain came through!
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