Early on, when I decided to go travel to the Italian Champs this year, I wanted to bring my 6 year old son. I checked with Gianni, and he was quick to let me know that I could count on having a place to stay for the two of us. This was the first time I was going away with him alone, so we were both looking forward to it, with a fair amount of anticipation. The only thing I didn't quite look forward to, was the Italian Champs, and having to give away so many ranking points.
We left home thursday morning, eating breakfast on the train to the airport. Landed at Malpensa before noon, and took the bus to the Central Station. Thankfully, Gianni had provided me with a play-by-play instruction on how to get to his place, and even a few touristic endevours we could enjoy while waiting for The Royal Family to be off work. We followed thes instructions, and we had a great time. Jesper got a bit pissed though, towards all the locals commenting and touching his whiter than white hair.
Thursday evening we drove to the mountains, near the Como Lake, to spend two nights at the Royal Family's mountain house. A very enjoyable stay, where the kids got to play, we got to walk around in the mountains, enjoy the free nature and a fantastic view. That whole friday, up in the mountains, is one of my most calm, harmonic and wonderful days in a very long time.
Saturday we drove back to Milan, where Jesper and I got set up at the Kick Off House (tm). Giannis mom took very good care of us, and if my weekend wasn't good enough, it became the weekend of weekends when she declared that Gianni needed to work on his looks, as she meant I looked much younger than him. And coming from a woman looking 15 years younger than her age, I accept the compliment
Saturday evening, Gianni spent an hour with me, playing a bit of ko2 (in the Kick Off House), tutoring me a bit on a few majour glitches in my game-style.
A very effective round for me, it should prove.
Come sunday, it was game-day, and I would get the chance to test my new knowledge. But first we needed to set up for the tournament, and have the traditional pizza-lunch. Let me put it the easy way, I've never seen Jesper eat that much in one sitting. He was all over that pizza. A happy moment for me.
And it was also very nice to see how the locals took care of Jesper, playing around with him, making him feel comfortable, providing him with some laughs. Allesandro and Fabio was especially nice to him. Thanks guys About the matches;
I started out with Lorenzo C, then Fabio, getting two straight and easy defeats. I guess I could've performed better vs Lorenzo, but his 3 points was never in jeopardy. vs Fabio I was very pleased to keep his score in the single digits, but to be honest he was playing a really sloppy game, giving away about 10 100 % chances...
After that it picked up a bit for me, with a 3-0 win vs Denny, a 9-0 win vs Martino (this one pleased me, as Martino sits like Oliver when he plays, swaying back and forth, so it kind of made me feel like I was kind of beating Oliver
) and a 6-2 win vs Paolo. My only kind of struggle in this part of the tournament was when playing Mauro. I was up rather early, to a 3-0 lead, but in second half he closed the gap and we were at 3-3, but i managed the winner with the final shot of the match. 4-3. Very pleasing for me.Then cam the match I will remember for a while. I was playing Flavio, and noticing he was interchanging between 442 and 433 I immediately felt comfortable, considiering the tricks Gianni showed me the night before. And MAN did it work!!! After first half I was up 9-1!!! 9-1!!! I've never playd such a perfect game as I did in those 5 minutes. Of course, in second half I lost focus on my newly aquired skillset, and the game ended with 10-3. Boy, oh boy was I pleased.
Then I moved on to the other Lorenzo, Lorenzo L. We've played before, once I won, once he won, as far as I can recall. This time it ended in a kind of nerve-wrecking 3-3, and felt really good.
Following up with a comfortable 6-2 win over the very nice Alex Brown, combined with a nice chat (finally someone talking english!
), my pleasure-scale was through the roof.Fabrizio was comfortably beaten 8-2, and then it was over to Allessandro. My son, having made good friends with Allessandro, was an eager spectator, giving Allessandro a beating every time he scored, ended up with punching Allessandro 9 times, me 4 times. Fair enough.
Gianni showed his world class skill, giving me my only double digit loss for the tournament - 10-1, until I finished up with a 10-0 win vs Francesco.
All in all I finished 6th of 14 players, just a measly 2 goals difference between me and Lorenzo L on 5th. And I've definately haven't scored this many goals in one tournament ever before.
Come time for medals, Jesper was VERY happy for recieving a medal from Gianni (he wouldn't take it off the next 48 hours), and was equally proud when he got to give Gianni his Gold Medal. Thanks Gianni, for those small, but very important things.
Monday morning it was time for us to go home, and Jesper just kept on asking "Dad, when are we coming back here?" over and over again. I think he had just as good a time as I did.
Thanks guys.
My pictures can be found HERE
