Italy 2...Germany 0!

Rome, Italy -- While I was not in Rome last night, there were plenty of Italian fans downtown Stuttgart at the Schloss Platz for the big Germany vs. Italy game. I found this picture on the world cup soccer fan zone and thought it was a great picture.

Anyway, the slide show has some pics from the game last night. There were over 100,000 people there! About 80% German and about 20% Italian. It would have been great if Germany could have won, but the Italians pulled two quick goals at the end. I was just rooting for Germany so that everyone would go crazy if they won. As you can see though, most were going crazy the whole game anyway! The same thing happened in Palma de Mallorca over this past weekend when we watched the German team beat Argentina and France beat Brazil.

Palma has a lot of Germans there and it was just as crazy there! No matter where I go (Germany, Mexico, and Palma) there are crazy fans everywhere. Whole countries shut down. All I know is that this is and amazing feeling and it makes me wish that someday the Americans will get smart on this idea and unify for our soccer team in the future. We are missing out in the states!

Anyway, I was going to write about Palma, running, and the world cup separately and may later. I am headed downtown again tonight soon for the next big game of France vs. Portugal. I am rooting for Portugal.

Although we partied it up with the Germans last night pretty hard, I hit a milestone in running today. I broke the 10 mile barrier. I almost wanted to just keep going and run the 13.1 miles it takes for the half-marathon, but figured I better stick to our training plan. The half-marathon is two weeks away and I don't want to get injured. Anyway, it was great and I am still trying to swindle my way into the Marine Corps Marathon with John in October. We will see about that. Well, I am off to the World Cup Match! Go Portugal!