The Frinklin and Fred Show

Throwing flares before a game is a tradition in Italy. However, throwing them out during a game is almost unheard of. I have no idea what these "fans" were thinking - they had to know it would result in the game being cancelled and the club being banned from European competition.

To makes matters worse, later on in this tournament, Liverpool and Juventus will face each other for the first time since a riot left 39 people dead in 1985.

That would be tonight (7:45 London time, 11:45am LA time). No deaths or serious injuries in the stands would be considered a victory for the authorities.

There is nothing like it in the US.

Most of the soccer violence in Italy is actually more political than sports-related. For example, last night's game between Inter and AC Milan. Traditionally, the right wing supports Inter and the left wing supports AC. This is odd given that until last year Silvio Berlusconi owned AC Milan, but that tradition goes back way before his time.

Here's a prime example of John's point.

Thanks Guys... European soccer is something I can't even pretend to understand, though I've kinda always wanted too.

The Juventus vs Liverpool game was uneventful (both in the stands and pretty much on the field). That's good news.

There were so many questionable calls that went Liverpool's way, that I couldn't shake the feeling that the referees wanted Juventus out. Also, Juventus played with so little energy that I thought that they were taking a dive. Weird game, but Liverpool played hard and desrved their "victory" (they won on total goals over 2 games). It's just a shame that Liverpool's not that good and now they're in the semi-finals.

The North American press will probably have a hard time saying "Italian" rather than "English soccer hooligans" around the next world cup. Reporting on the antics of English "fans" was about all the coverage you got of the world cup in US media, further demonstrating to this Canadian of mixed Euro heritage the sad truth that most Americans just don't get it. As in many things, in this case not much lamented, England has lost its former leadership in the demented world of soccer crowd violence. As the pundits will tell you its all about testosterone, tribalism and social and economic malais. By the way, Liverpool beat Juve because they came out and played football for the first half at Anfield, that is they attacked the other teams goal and tried to put the ball in the net rather than sitting back and waiting for the other team to make a mistake, Italian style. Ironic that the reds won the second leg by beating an Italian team at their own game.