Francia 3, Spagna 1 (France 3, Spain 1)

The city of Milan, acting benevolently for the vast foreign legion of visitors who do not have televisions, are screening all of the World Cup matches on a big screen in the Piazza del Duomo. Being, as I was, a man with only a single pair of socks, no more books to read and also somewhat at a loose end after dinner, I found myself heading down to the Duomo area (also the main shopping drag in the city) yesterday evening, in order to kill several birds with one stone.

Come 9 pm, with socks and books in store, and despite being slightly delirious with residual jet-lag, I found myself a section of fence to perch on to watch the evening's action. A match between France and Spain sounded too good to miss. Throughout the first half, I swapped pidgin Anglo-Italian opinions with the elderly gent next to me - Thierry Henry was an idiot for spoiling every single one of France's early attacks by sprinting yards offside; Spain's penalty was extremely soft (insert your own 'he went down like a ...' comment here). We shook hands at the magnificence of the French equaliser (realisation dawned at that point that I was indeed rooting for France).

The numbers of Spaniards in the piazza were bolstering as the match went on, and as the second half progressed, they made a decent fist of getting behind their team, 'Ole!'ing away even as the efforts of their charges waned on the pitch. Needless to say, following Henry's sole contribution to the match (falling over, clutching his face to win a free-kick), and Patrick Viera's subsequent header was deflected in, the tide turned in the square, with the outnumbered French, who had clustered in the centre of the crowd, making all of the noise, bouncing around and waving their flags with glee.

Zidane killed the game off a few minutes later, with a neat dribble and finish, and the crowd started to disperse off into the darkness. I can imagine that the French may have been rather late to bed that night; I, on the other hand, was beginning to feel seriously strange from the heat and the tiredness, and staggered off to catch the Metro home.