Australia Bows out to Dodgy Penalty - Ed Flees to Budapest

Going into the round of 16 match with Italy, I was expecting Italy to get an early goal, then defend with 11 behind the ball until the end. The fact that no-one expected Australia to reach the knock out rounds meant that there was little tension and pressure, as everyone expected Italy to win comfortably. I went to Boomerang again with my Roncalli friends and watched Australia play quite well to keep Italy out, while never really threatening the Italian goal. However, early in the second half, an Italian player was rather harshly sent off, meaning that all of a sudden, Austraia were in the box seat. Unfortunately, we had a mountain of posession, but very few chances. At 0-0 and well into injury time, I actually started thinking that we could pull off an upset against a visibly tiring Italian team in extra time. Football has a way of punishing those thoughts, however, as in the 93rd minute, Grosso dribbled into the box, Neill went to ground to block his shot, only to see the Italian calmly change direction and walk into him, drawing contact and falling over theatrically. Naturally, the referee pointed to the spot, Totti scored with the last kick of the game, and Australia were out of the world cup in the most cruel and bitter way possible.

To say I was bitter and angry after this match was a bit of an understatement. However, instead of wallowing in my self pity, I caught up with my English mate Andy after his band practice, then got smashed and went to his favourite seedy bar Spirit. I ended up having a good night, but felt rather down and didn't do much else for the rest of the week. On the 30th, I met my mate Ralf at the Dortmund airport, and we flew to Budapest to stay with a friend of ours for a few days.

After getting recognised by a student of mine at Budapest airport (small world), we got a taxi into the city, where my mate Mark's apartment was. I always am amazed driving through old eastern European cities. The outer suburbs are universally dull, depressing, and blatantly soviet. However, as you get closer to the city centre, you start to notice amazingly beautiful old buildings, hundreds of years older than anything we have in Australia. The centre of Budapest was incredibly beautiful, with many grand old style buildings on both the Buda and Pest sides of the Danube. Our first afternoon was spent playing football on a large island in the middle of the Danube. Following this, we got ready for the Germany Argentina quarter final. Given that Mark and all his friends from Budapest uni are Germans, everyone was quite pumped up for the match. We went down to a live site with big screen, and watched the match with a surprising amount of expats. It seems that Hungarians really had no interest in the World Cup, as they didn't manage to even qualify. Anyway, with 80 cent beers and Germany winning in a penatly shootout, everyone was pretty keen to party afterwards.

After a few preliminaries, we caught a ridiculously over-crowded night bus down to the river, where many very cool nightclubs are located. In summer months, two of the better clubs are giant open air discotheques situated on either side of a bridge spanning the Danube. With cheap central European alcohol, and a great river side setting, we made a night of it, getting home about 8am. Saturday was more of a rest day. After a sleep in, we played Texas Hold 'em all afternoon while watching the other quarter finals on Hungarian TV. Afterwards we went out to another club, this time a dark underground affair with cheap drinks and badly performed Hungarian Karaoke. On the Sunday we went for a walk through the old town. Walking along the river, the sheer history and culture of the city blows you away. After taking in the sights for a few hours, we went home with some beers and played poker until the early hours.

The next day we got up early and went to the central markets. There we bought a huge amount of food and cooked up a massive dinner of steak and roast potatoes. Afterwards everyone wanted to have a quiet night, as the Germany Italy semi final was the next evening. The morning of the match we bought a sports bag full of cheap Hungarian beer and went to the island to lounge around in the sun for a few hours. At about 6 we got ready and went over to the fan site for the game. The atmosphere there was amazing. However, I couldn't help thinking about how crazy it must have been in Dortmund, as the semi was being played at the Westfalenstadion, literally 10 minutes walk from my dorm. After an entertaining game, deep into extra time and with penalties looming, Italy scored two quick goals in the last minute. The celebratory atmosphere was popped like a balloon. All my german friends were absolutley shocked and speechless for hours after the game. We walked home, then decided to go to a club and drown our sorrows.

After staying out quite late and getting an early taxi to the airport, Ralf and I were shocked to discover that Easyjet had cancelled our plane back to Dortmund for no apparent reason. Naturally this pissed us off no end, and as I had no money left, and Ralf had to be back in Germany for a business meeting the next morning, the rescheduled flight the next morning was out of the question. After freaking out for a little while, we got a bus to the other terminal and booked two tickets on a very expensive Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt on Ralf's credit card. Running like sleep deprived, hungover madmen through the airport and immigration, we boarded the flight with 2 minutes to spare. After landing in Frankfurt, we wrote a letter to Easyjet claiming the EU regulated 250-400 Euro compensation for such monumental cock-ups. It remains to be seen how quickly they respond. Knowing Easyjet, they will fight tooth and nail not to pay, then probably offer us a drink coupon. I may have to get my travel insurance company involved.

Anyway, after getting back to Dortmund, I watched the cheating Italians win a totally undeserved World Cup, with the highlight of the match being Zinedine Zidane's red mist induced headbutt in extra time, which sent an Italian flying to the ground writhing around in 'agony'. At least consolation can be brought from the fact that Australia went out of the tournament to the eventual world champions, who needed a dubious last minute penalty to overcome us.