Back when the Wor;d Cup started, the Inquirer’s economic columnist Andrew Cassell argued that many economists were rooting for Italy to win. Apparently, it’s been reasonably well documented that the country that wins the World Cup experiences a jump in economic growth in the following year. Cassell argued that Europe was most in need of a jump start, and that Italy’s economy was big enough to make a difference in the overall health of the economy and sluggish enough that the World Cup bump would make a noticeable difference in pushing it onto a growth track.
Well, thanks to penalty kicks, we’re going to find out if Cassell’s theory is right. I caught the last few minutes, just in time to see a French player get kicked out of the game for head-butting an Italian, and then to see the penalty kicks. I gotta say I feel bad for those goalkeepers. The French keeper didn’t stop anything, and really, neither did the Italian – the French missed when one player hit the crossbar after the Italian keeper had dived. That’s gonna lead to a few years of could’a-should’a, I’ll bet.