Conspiring To Conspire (May 2018) : A.S. Roma Loses

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Certainly a few British newspapers pointed out that A.S. Roma should have been awarded two more penalties in their recent match against Liverpool which sent the English team into the Champions final.

I sat glumly in a bar on Soi Buakhao and refused to talk to a Liverpool supporter who was gleefully celebrating an easy victory even before the second leg had finished. I did want to lean over and say to him, “You never walk alone…..and that’s why you’re here in Pattaya!” Instead, I changed bars to watch the second half. I left before Roma’s only penalty.

As any child with basic maths knows, Roma could (and should) have won (if it had converted two, more penalties from the spot) and that’s not taking into consideration A.S. Roma’s psychological make-up which would have been given a huge boost had “fair” refereeing happened.

But it didn’t (I’m presuming)!

If super tennis can rely on technology to decide, why can’t Champions League football, too? Because it can’t.

In the aftermath of the match, I’ve begun to wonder how much big business would have suffered had Liverpool lost. Just think of the betting shops (and UK gambling is a huge business – just for a “kick-off”). There’s also the tradition of Liverpool football to consider, the alleged glamour of a city which became famous in the sixties for its Fab Four (and they, in turn, for leading an obtuse world to a better drug-high). I could string together a lot of other reasons why an English team in the final is better than an Italian team.

Is there a conspiracy going on that causes an underdog to fail to qualify when it should have?

Tennyson’s still small voice* whispers: “Serves Roma right. It should never have lost 5 – 2 at Anfield in the first place!”

And I am happy again!

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I can’t cope with the madness of thinking I was part of a conspiracy that let Liverpool win, me sitting glum in a Pattaya sports bar, watching the beautiful hookers walking Soi Buakhao, watching A.S. Roma lose to Liverpool, watching a handful of experts fail to see not one penalty-foul but two while all the ghosts of my past rose and got my goat when that Liverpool supporter leaned across and asked me, “Who are you supporting? Do you speak English? Not going to answer me, eh?”…..while my love for my “Italian-and-Roma-born” son made me sad for A.S. Roma’s loss despite…..his mother!…..despite all those terribly sad, financially ruinous and wasted years in Italy when the “bel paese” frazzled my nerves and I walked the Colosseum, fighting my own formidable gladiators.

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*“A still small voice spake unto me,

“Thou art so full of misery,

Were it not better not to be?””

Alfred Lord Tennyson