Drunken Soccer Full Story

The late night activities of Thursday, January 26, started out as most others do here in the eternal city. I worked a six hour shift at the Abbey Pub, grabbed my free "shift beer" at about 3am, and headed down to Corso Vittorio Emmanuelle II to grab a bite to eat at Dog-Out. Dog-Out is one of Rome's only hot dog vendors and due to its late closing time, 5am, caters to many local drunks, bartenders, club promoters, DJ's, and homeless wanderers. The hot dogs are phenomenal, and you can get 24oz. Beck's bottles for about 3 euros.
Before I even got the chance to order my dog I bumped into a group of guys from my other job, the Drunken Ship. Mike, Jason, and Dan (all american ex-patriots seem to hang out together, hence why none of us this evening were Italian) had also just left work and were planning on their next move for the evening, debating on how to spend the remaining hours of the early morning. We picked a place called Naklar, a private "social organization" which requires membership and masquerades itself as a "dart society". In reality, these types of places all have titles like this to get through the legal beurocracy of serving liquor all night.
Dan, the soccer player and coach of the John Cabbot University Women's Soccer Team, was easily the most inebriated of us all. Dan became a serious alcoholic after his mother passed away from cancer about a year ago, and in his own words he's been "trying to drink himself to death" ever since. What I didn't know at the time was how talented of an athlete he was, and still is. By the time we left Naklar, he'd been out drinking for about 21 hours straight, no sleep. And his drinking didn't end there.
The next stop on our bender was the MacDonald's in nearby Termini, Rome's central train station. At that moment there was nothing better than the staleness of the previous night's hamburger buns on a bland big mac, salty fries, and a fanta with no ice. This put us in a good mood. Good enough, in fact, to decide to stay up all night with Dan and accompany him to the Holocaust soccer game. There were four of us left standing who agreed. Mike, Jason, Dan, and myself were going to go to Dan's house in Trastevere to drink a few espresso's, pick up his cleats and uniform, and buy a fifth of Bacardi to mix with 20 oz. Cokes at the game. Within an hour we did just that.
It was 10am now, and we sat in Piazza Trilusa like homeless men. In our smelly clothes and wreaking of booze, we reduced ourselves to yelling cat calls at American girls and hard stares at nosey Italian men. All the while we getting drenched by a light but steady rain. At this point I had to stop drinking. The smell of Bacardi nearly made me sick. The bottle was split 50/50 between Mike and Jason. Dan switched to 16oz. cans of beer. He was the captain and coach of the soccer team, and he had 30 minutes before kick-off.
We boarded a charter bus and headed off to a nearby suburb, the name of which I don't know. The bus was full of American semester-abroad students, mostly girls, and a handful of Italian soccer players. They knew Dan was drunk and teased him about it. It didn't matter though, they also knew that drunk or not he was the best player on the team.
The stadium was small but very well maintained. The pitch was bright green and the stands were elevated about 15 feet to give the spectators a perfect view. The stands were lined with older dapper looking gentlemen dressed in long overcoats and shiney Italian leather shoes. There were also the students from the bus and a few young Italians who just wanted to see a game. It was a game between Rome's University all-stars and the Macabee's, an all Jewish team from a Hebrew cultural society. The game was televised live on Rai (Italian TV), and the camera crews were peppered in the crowd and around the field.
The only thing that actually kept me from falling asleep was Jason. His drunken ramblings broke the awkward silence in the fan section, which was surprisingly quiet. Girls just aren't good at being rowdy sports fans. They try, but it's noticeably ingenuine. A kind of forced excitement to mask their real reason for being at the game, to stare at attractive athletic men, muscles blaring, running around in front of them. Not Jason though, he could care less about the game or the girls.
Mike was passed out on a bench while I desperately tried to control my laughter. "Beat the Jews" Jason shouted, "Jews can't play sports well". After a few long stares he quickly followed with, "what, I'm Jewish, I'm allowed to make fun of my own people. Now turn around you morons". I don't think the girls around us understood that this was the bacardi talking, but I did, so I just sat there and laughed.
The game was a blow-out so it quickly became boring to watch. The Macabees were losing 5-1, and Jason turned his attention to the girls. They treated him as if he was a soap box preacher predicting the end of the world on a busy street in Manhattan. He'd yell, everyone would hear him, but no one would look at him. Then he went in for the kill. He found the hottest looking girl in the crowd, sat about two inches away from her, and came out of left field with the most random diatribe of the afternoon. "Do you like the Seinfeld Pez episode?....do you lady?...do you...um...Stephanie? (her name was Britney)....well fuck you then, I thought it was funny" he said as his words slurred together in a barely audible blur.
Within a few minutes the game was over. The all-stars won handily and the players met in the stands to recieve plaques comemorating the event. Dan played masterfully and probably performed better than anyone else on his team. We rejoined him after he got his plaque, 16oz. beer in hand. We then boarded the bus back to Piazza Trilusa. Mike was in and out of sleep and the last thing I heard out of Jason was "hey you....you're the guy...you...I'm going to piss in your mouth". Then he fell asleep too.
At Trilusa we all went our seperate ways. Jason, Mike, and I went home. Dan found a local pub and kept drinking into the late afternoon. He was scheduled to work a few hours after the game. From what I heard secondhand, he locked himself out of his apartment and fell asleep on his stairwell. He missed his shift by 4 hours. The next day Dan was fired. I haven't seen him since.