Desktop Style

absolute feat on my laptop!!!!!

thank you pipi!

they want to throw me out of the airport!!!

is what I wrote to Cuervo friend Fabián Casas and other Cuervo friends. I couldn´t fly happier. I will send this e-mail when we land.

Half an hour from our departure from the Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., I'm watching the game against Newell's on my laptop close to the departure gate for our plane. And suddenly Romagnoli makes magic, running down the left wing and gives one last opportunity to Gigliotti, who had failed at two clear opportunities to win this incredible game. I shout:

GOOOOOOOOOOOLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!![trans.note:Spanish for "Great Goal!"]

with my whole soul, and I start jumping everywhere like a panicked deer among the passengers and their luggage.

!!!!!!PIPI!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!PIPI!!!! ¡¡¡¡PIPIIII!!!!

People don't understand what's happening. They don't understand why I'm shouting and jumping. They don't know if yelling "Pipi!" over and over means that I've pissed myself or if I've hurt myself somehow. A gentleman with a U.S. Army military uniform, probably recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan, gets up and approaches me quickly, saying, "Cool it, man! Easy now...what's wrong, what happened???..." "Never mind" - I say shouting the goal. "CALM DOWN SIR!" I run again to my computer screen, repeating, "GOAL, GOAL, GOAL" to assure myself that it's true, to see if we can hold on to 3-2 for a few minutes more. Since I stopped shouting and am only looking at the laptop, I think the military man moves away and sits down. The other passengers also are calming down and some are laughing a little.

Everyone except one [man] who's German - or Austrian or Swiss - who asks me if I am Victor Mortensen. I tell him yes. "Fussbal!," he says to me with a smile, approaching the computer to see what game it is. "Ja, fussbal," I answer him. "San Lorenzo de Almagro fussbal," I say to him. At least this [guy] understands me. "Si, señor. Argentina, First Division. Buenos Aires. The game is almost finished." I make room for him to see the last minutes with me. When 30 seconds of the 4 minutes added by the referee have passed, two security officials from the airport, grab me and move me away from my laptop, saying, "Sir, what is WRONG with you???" They look at my German friend but leave him alone. They separate me from the laptop and from the people. I´m still hearing the comments of those from Channel 7 on the Rojadirecta page, "...historic comeback...great victory..." The police ask me for my passport, my boarding card, they ask me a lot of things. I tell them there´s nothing wrong, that I´m sorry but I´m watching a soccer game and my team just scored a very important goal, that the game is almost over. While they ask me questions and look at my documents, I try to look over their shoulders at what is happening on the laptop, hoping that the game stays 3-2. It ends and I want to shout victory, but I know it´s not what I exactly require now with these two guys checking me out. Finally they let me go after warning me that if I start shouting again, they are not going to allow me to fly and are going to throw me out of the airport. Toward the end of their warnings, the "fussbal" friend approaches them shyly and tells them pointing at me: "Das ist Victor Mortensen. Victor Mortensen der schauspieler. He is the actor... he is Victor Mortensen. King Aragorn." The policemen don´t pay any attention to him. They look at me a moment longer and then the one who seems to be the boss says: "Keep the noise down, sir." They walk some 20 metres and they keep watching to see if something else is happening with me. When they see everything is all right and that I sit down quietly, they go. It turns out that my friend is Swiss. He speaks to me a little about the great victory yesterday of Switzerland against Germany in a friendly match played in Basilea. Another historic victory. They could have scored more goals, my friend tells me.

Now I´m flying, physically and mentally in the clouds like all Cuervos. What a relief! A key match, a total feat. Our stadium full, the supporters supporting everything, believing in the miracle. And that´s what it was. One of the most beautiful miracles. After the terrible defeat against Unión, we didn´t have a margin left. Great Buffarini, great everybody. Huge. There are 3 more matches left, three finals. Yes, we can. We can.