WC2006: A Flair For The Dramatic

BERLIN (1:00pm local time) -- I guess American sportswriters can be colorful at times, but it's typically the columnists who can get away with it. These are passages from the actual news stories in Tuesday's International Herald Tribune:

"Andrea Pirlo, the AC Milan midfielder, has an uncanny long-range eye and the ability to deliver. Positioned to the left of the penalty area, seeing the goalie's vision blurred by a forest of players in front of the goal line, Pirlo imperiously struck the ball, guided it, persuaded it over those defenders and inside the far post."

That's just poetry, man. And this:

"The noisy Australian fans made clear what they thought, although perhaps the referee, Abd El Fatah of Egypt, was unfamiliar with English sexual insults."

is just funny. I am a little surprised by the number of spelling errors in the IHT, though.