Suspense, Bro

The Times’ report on local Italian soccer boosters has nothing on the Queens Chronicle’s coverage of the proud day:

Waving Italian flags and honking their horns, droves of soccer enthusiasts and proud Italian Americans stormed Queens’ streets on Sunday to celebrate the country’s first World Cup title since 1982.

“Incredible, absolutely incredible,” said Howard Beach’s Saverio Blasi of the overtime thriller. He was standing at the corner of 157th Street and Cross Bay Boulevard.

With a snare drum, harmonica and red, white and green kazoo all strung around his neck, the native Neapolitan covered his ears while his wife, Savina, shouted over the crowd’s noise, “The French were tough today. It was a close match, a great game.”

The Blasis were joined by an estimated crowd of 1,500 who came out and celebrated into the evening. Several officers from Ozone Park’s 106th Precinct were called out to supervise the revelry.

Meanwhile, a motorcade paraded up and down Cross Bay Boulevard, its cars and trucks carrying fans climbing out of sunroofs, hanging out of windows and cheering from the beds of pickup trucks.

. . .

To stay calm, Ozone Park friends Anna Sabatino, 21, and Antoinette Composto, 20, moved a television set beside Sabatino’s swimming pool and took in the game from two floats.

Showing her pride, Sabatino came out to Howard Beach to celebrate, wearing a red, green and white skirt.

Standing in the right lane on the southbound side of Cross Bay Boulevard, which police officers had reserved for celebrators, John Passarella, 18, said that he took the game in with 20 friends at his Howard Beach home on a 6 foot by 8 foot plasma television.

“Suspense, bro. Suspense,” was the only way he could sum up the day, his arm around jubilant friend, Vincenzo Argento. After the game ended, the group of 20 lit fireworks and piled on top of each other on Passarella’s front lawn.

“Being Italian is more than just a nationality. It’s a gift,” he said. “Now we get to celebrate it.”