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But, Basil!

This afternoon Oz cut out of work early to catch some of the France vs. Spain match. He was rooting for France. He said, "I don't know why a jersey design makes me so partial, but there it is."

The French team does have excellent jerseys. Japan also.

This was a great match. Both teams had a good style of play, so it was fun to watch. In the end, experience won out over hotness (the old—younger than me, but still—French guys beat the cute young Spanish boys).

Our commentary was provided by a pair of Frenchmen who were not so effusive with the Oh-la-la-la-la's but they were really effusive about everything else. One of them is named Basil. We know this because he kept commentating so effusively that the other one, to get a word in, had to shout and preface every remark with "But, Basil!"

Yesterday Basil and the other guy were also on for Switzerland vs. Ukraine (which I kept mis-speaking and calling "Ukrania"). "J'aime les joueurs ukraniens!" Basil cried, and whenever the camera pointed at pretty girls in the crowd, he sighed, "Ah, une jolie suissesse! Elle est très blonde!" They actually talked about the match too, until the camera picked more girls out of the crowd and Basil sighed, "Ah, les suisses!" (Yes, French people mess up their gendered words too.) And the other guy said, "Non, non, Basil! Les suissesses!"

That match had me wondering about German stadium culture. They played Doris Day singing Que sera, sera over the PA during the break between the last over time period and the penalty kickoff.

But anyway, today France was playing, so the commentators took this match a tad more seriously. They lost it at the end, though, when France was ahead by one in the last few minutes (with that one being from a penalty that I didn't think was fair), and then Zidane scored another goal. Then the commentary devolved into "Woo! France is the greatest! Yeah, the French people will be partying all up and down the Champs-Elysées tonight!" (I have to translate, I don't remember exactly how they said all that.) They managed to intersperse their effusions with "Oh, but it isn't over yet!" I think we heard that twenty times in the last two minutes. Then it was over and Basil cried, "Yes! France is awesome. We beat Spain again, like we did in [list of years]!"

These guys are very much about the exclamation points.