[extropy-chat] italian football victory

[scerir]

From: "spike" 
> 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?

It is a long story. 
And there are many answers.

First of all, the soccer World Cup
is one of the very, very rare events
for which Italians (even Italians living 
abroad) feel they live in a country, 
in a nation, and not just in their little 
or large towns.
http://www.homestead.com/forza_azzurri/Main.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy_national_football_team

There are many reasons for that,
but the roots are perhaps already here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Italy_1494_shepherd.jpg 

On the contrary our French cousins
are 'toujour' proud of their country,
of its 'grandeur', and they are inclined
to believe that the 'equipe de France',
or 'les bleus' http://www.fff.fr/bleus/index.shtml
'sans aucun doute' must win, easily, 
the World Cup. (But this time they did not
play a good enough soccer).