Che Culo!

... is what Italian's say when there is a stroke of luck. And that is just what was needed this time round. For a moment I felt like the giallorossi might feel most of the time.... winning with a botta di culo. Only then I remembered that they rarely get to taste the quarter finals of the Champions League. The fate of a supporter is dramatically intertwined with the fate of his team. the real supporter will hang on to the team no matter how desperate it is looking. Seeing Werder play the offside trap to perfection, watching their counter-attack look as deadly as only Micoud could have done that evening, the real supporter prepares to bite the bullet. When every shot by your team is saved by a super goalie you begin to give up and transfer the reserves of hope to that whore of passion better known as lady luck. I sent the doom laden sms to Pierre at half-time:"Notte Kerha" in allusion to the writer's nick of Notte Brava. Pierre replied full of hope. So did Nathaniel that fellow Juve fanatic from Malta. For that half Brussels, Luxembourg and San Gwann were united in hope (I know peckelectrick must have been hoping somewhere else too). Then hope came in the form of a bungling save by Werder's seemingly ubermensch goalkeeper. A stroke of luck finished off by El Puma Emerson. The Brazilian genius, who left life in the provinces to play for class, delivered the killer punch with one of the easiest goals he will score in his life. We were graced, where all valiant efforts and build-ups had failed the blind lady had helped. We needed a bit of the "culo" and we got it. And as a blind , faithful supporter I will repeat what I said when we still needed the goal: "I do not care how it goes in... so long as it goes in and we are through to the next round!"

Dedicated to all the Vecchia Signora supporters out there.