Well, the 36th America's Cup match got underway as the defender Emirates Team New Zealand (Led by 'Pistol Pete' of Peter Burling who has taken responsibilities as skipper aboard the New Zealand yacht) have taken victory in the 1st race by 31 seconds to go up 1 - 0 in the best of 13 series to beat the challenger of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli but it was Luna Rossa's turn to dominate race 2 as they turned the tables by reversing the result that they lost on race 1 & managed to hold on & win the race by 7 seconds against ETNZ who had all sorts of trouble before the start to square the series at 1 all (And Prada have found the competitive edge under experienced America's Cup campaigner of James Spithill (AKA 'Jimmy the Pitbull' or 'Pitbull Jimmy') but is this a sign of revival for Spithill if Italy were to win the America's Cup for the first time? We'll see (And Italy's last major sporting triumph was the 2006 Soccer World Cup victory in which they beat rivals France (Who have appeared in their 2nd of 3 Soccer World Cup finals (They 1st appeared in the final in 1998 as the host nation in which they won as they famously beat Brazil by 3 goals (Including a brace by future Real Madrid coach/manager Zinedine Zidane who famously scored both headers from corner kicks as well as Arsenal player Emmanuel 'Manu' Petit who finished the Brazilians off with the last goal of the 1998 tournament at the death) in the final at the Stade de France (That the late Nan & Pops have been) in St-Denis to win their 1st of 2 Soccer World Cup titles & their most recent appearance in the final of the Soccer World Cup was at the last tournament in 2018 in which they repeated their success in 1998 with a win against Croatia by 2 goals (The goal scorers for France were Croatia's Mario Mandzukic off an own goal, Antoine Griezmann off a penalty, Paul Pogba & young teenage sensation at the time, Kylian Mbappe while the goal scorers for Croatia were Ivan Perisic as well as Mandzukic who capitalized off an error by French captain Hugo Lloris to score the last goal of the most recent tournament) to win their 2nd Soccer World Cup title in the final at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia in a rematch of the 1998 semifinal encounter) on penalties in the final after an incident which saw the French soccer captain Zinedine Zidane red carded for headbutting a Italian player Marco Materazzi who traded insults (And the pro German crowd were in favor of the French because every time Italy got the ball, they jeered but Zidane had to serve 3 days working for world soccer's governing body, FIFA, in exchange of a 3 match ban while Materazzi had been suspended for both games & got fined after insulting Zidane) during extra time) compared to New Zealand's last major sporting triumph which is the America's Cup victory in Bermuda in 2017 (It was a reversal of 2013 when Oracle Team USA came from behind to win all 8 races after being 8 - 1 down when they beat Emirates Team New Zealand to complete a greatest comeback in America's Cup history to defend the Auld Mug in San Francisco) since they won the Prada Cup).
So that is my 399th blog of the year 2021 (MMXXI) & my 19th of this year (And there is 1 remaining until I hit the quadruple ton).
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