There were five or six other regular teams in Grantville and Magdeburg, and teams were springing up in most of the larger towns in Thuringia and Franconia and anywhere else the Americans had a real presence in the USE. The Germans had taken to the game in a way they hadn’t to football or basketball and been slower about with soccer. Talk about organizing real leagues had not gotten far, what with the war and all. But that was just a matter of time, especially after the Committees of Correspondence decided that organizing sports clubs was an excellent way of extending their influence still further.
The whole subject was something of a sore point with Frank and his brothers. They’d done what they could to get soccer adopted as well, but—
And then it hit him. They were in freaking Italy. Italy! For crying out loud, there pretty much wasn’t any more promising territory for spreading the word about soccer without going to Brazil or—he was reminded by the sight of Aidan talking to some other soldiers with drunken animation—England. Back up-time, soccer had been Italy’s other national religion.
Arcangela broke into Frank’s train of thought, all but derailing it. “It is true,” she said. “Billy has told us all of this game. But it was not very clear to me.”
When he stopped laughing, Frank said: “And now let me tell you about the game they play in Italy in the future.”
As he explained, he could see the interest taking hold, people drifting over to listen. He’d been right. Better still, Giovanna seemed as interested as anyone.
One of the Venetian guys—Frank could recall seeing him horsing trunks into the embassy—said, “We need a ball?”
“Sure, about so big.” Frank held his hands out to indicate the size of a FIFA standard ball.
“And with just the feet and the head?” the porter asked.
“Yup. Handling it is a foul. What’s your name, sorry?”
“Marius,” the porter said, rising and holding out a hand. “Marius Pontigrazzi.”
Pontigrazzi waved his wine glass in the direction of an intense-looking middle-aged man sitting at the center of the T in the big table. “I work for Giovanna’s father, over there.”
Frank’s enthusiasm came to a screeching halt. Giovanna’s father. Oh, Christ. Now that he really looked, he could see the family resemblance—just as he could see it in the two younger men sitting on either side of the man.
And her brothers. Oh, Christ.
The father’s name was Antonio, he recalled. Antonio Marcoli. Frank couldn’t remember the name of Giovanna’s brothers, if she’d even told him at all.
Frantically, he tried to figure out where to go from here. Swapping insults with a drunken fellow American and then launching into a fervent speech for the introduction of soccer was probably not, he feared, the best introduction he could have made of himself. He felt like Romeo finally introduced to Juliet’s father, and completely blowing it. Might as well pull out the dagger and take the poison now and be done with it.
Alas, Pontigrazzi wasn’t going to give him a break, either. The porter was starting to shuffle around. “Just the feet?” he demanded. “Silly!”
“And your head, Marius,” Gerry said. He’d gotten a cabbage from somewhere. “Watch,” he said, and dropped the vegetable.
Frank winced—et tu, brother?—but Gerry caught it neatly on his foot and balanced it there. Fortunately, the one gulp of the grappa didn’t seem to have affected Gerry’s reflexes—as he went on to prove with a quick flurry of keep-up moves, flicking the cabbage into the air and knocking it up off his left, then his right knee. As it came down again he caught it on his foot, paused a second and chipped it up and over to Ron, who headed it in a shower of cabbage leaves to Frank.
Fortunately, Frank had the presence of mind to chest-trap the cabbage; then, leaned back as it fell to kick it back up. He fluffed that a bit, and had to hop to get his knee under it, but then he was able to get into the rhythm and drunken cheering broke out.
What the hell, he told himself. Giovanna’s dad probably thinks I’m a jerk anyway, so I may as well prove I’m adept at it.