[extropy-chat] italian football victory

[spike]

Amara or some of the Europeans, please help me understand something. 

In the world cup football matches of the last couple weeks, France and Italy
did well, resulting in their reaching the finals.  I didn't follow it
myself, but I was constantly reminded that Italy was winning, because many
local businesses hung Italian flags.  But I didn't see any French flags.  

Some of my colleagues are Italian Americans, and some are French Americans.
I heard from the Italians, early and often.  The French not a word, never a
flag, nothing.  When the Italians won yesterday, I heard they went nuts down
in San Francisco, even those clearly not Italian.  We like to cheer for any
people who will cheer for themselves, do we not?

Please offer me some insight if you have one.  It appears that Italian
Americans are proud to be Italian, but French Americans are not proud to be
French.  Why is that?  Those two countries are neighbors, genetically the
people are about the same, they have similar population and standards of
living.  Why the asymmetry?

spike