the feast

It starts early, in the 50th minute of Italy-Slovakia. The ball is out of play, half-way between the box and the side-line. Mucha, the Slovakian goalie, takes his sweet time getting it—evidence that his team is going to defend their one-goal advantage with delay. The Italian Di Natale runs to press him on. They bump into each other and the goalie falls hard to the ground, with no shame, stealing liberally from the Italian repertoire.
Two minutes later, Fabio Cannavaro, Italy’s captain, tries to teach Mucha how to bring a yellow card to life and dives as soon as Hamsik challenges. But Howard Ebb, the English referee, isn’t playing along.
Slovakia scores a second time and the commentators are ready to dismiss Italy from the tournament until Di Natale shows himself again and scores for the current champions.
Thereafter it’s 16 minutes of total opera, only it’s Slovakian opera. Mucha, inside his own goal and tangled up by the net, is the overture. The coach magically eats up time with his substitutions, and the players follow suit with delirious dives, doubled up from nothing whatsoever—happily gathering a new collection of yellow cards. In between tumbles each team scores once more, turning the whole affair into a beautiful, wild carnival, the best of the World Cup so far.