世界上第二大説法語的城市－加拿大蒙特利爾市民將會支持決賽裏另外一隻藍軍。當整個巴黎都將注視7月9日的柏林，當所有法國人都站在法國隊背後時，意大利隊則能捕獲蒙特利爾市球迷的心。原因是在這個大都市裏，意大利移民和他們的故鄉的密切程度要遠遠超過城市的主要居民－講法語的魁北克人。“因為這是法語區，就認為他們會支持法國隊，這是錯誤的觀點。這不是50對50，如果我必須作個預測，我覺得有75%的人會支持意大利，而法國只能有25%的支持率。”蒙特利爾一電視臺的執行製片人説。
鏈結: http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=ap-wcup-montreal&prov=ap&type=lgns
原文:Montrealers support Italy more than France
By SEAN FARRELL, For The Associated Press
July 8, 2006
MONTREAL (AP) -- The second-largest French-speaking city in the world will be rooting for a different shade of blue Sunday.
While Paris will come to a standstill with all eyes on the World Cup final in Berlin and all French hearts squarely behind Les Bleus, Italy's Azzurri will grab a majority of the support of Montreal's soccer fans.
Mon Dieu! How can this be?
Simply put, this cosmopolitan metropolis' Italian immigrant community has much closer and more recent ties to its homeland than the city's predominantly French-speaking native Quebecers.
"We're proud," says Dave Barile, born here in 1979, seven years after his parents immigrated from Italy. "We're a culture that sticks together."
Montreal's Italian community is the city's third-largest ethnic group after French and English and it certainly makes its presence felt when the homeland is perfoming on the world stage.
Sporting an Italy cap as he sat at a sidewalk table at Caffe Epoca on Boulevard Saint-Laurent in the heart of Montreal's Little Italy district, Barile hushed one of his two childhood friends -- neither of Italian or French descent -- who ventured to predict Italy would win the final 1-0.
No jinxing, you know. There's clearly too much at stake.
And forget about getting into the restaurant Sunday; its reservation list was filled immediately following Italy's semifinal win Tuesday over host Germany. Already festooned with no less than 10 Italian flags, two large white wall panels were repainted -- one red, one green -- to turn one side of the cafe into a huge national flag.
"There's a false perception that because it's a French-speaking population that they'll go for France," says Domenic Vanelli, an executive producer for le Reseau des Sports (RDS), a cable TV network that holds the national French-language World Cup broadcasting rights. "It's not 50-50. If I had to ballpark it, I would say it's 75 percent Italian support to 25 percent for France."
Vanelli says Sunday's Italy-France final is his network's ideal matchup.
A stroll around town tells the tale.
Italian flags have been visible on buildings and cars throughout the city since the tournament began four weeks ago. While sightings have been nowhere near as frequent, French flags have begun to sprout up in the wake of France's surprise run to the final.
"We have never experienced a World Cup like this before," says Francoise Dan, a Caen native who moved to Montreal in 1999. "The tolerance between communities is just great. It's very impressive."
National pride took hold of Dan on Thursday and she was off to a flag shop, where she bought several red, white and blue Tricolores, including one for restaurateur Geoffroy Bardin, a fellow Normandy native from Deauville. Her much-apprecitated gift was quickly affixed to his Restaurant Laurin sign on Avenue du Parc.
Support here for Les Bleus will come mainly from French expatriates. Many of them will gather to take in the game at Marseillais bistro Le Massilia, which opened two months ago.
"I had the fortune of opening at the right time," says owner Hugues Gressot, a Marseille native who was vacationing in Montreal when France won the World Cup at home in 1998. "C'est la fete."
Bourg-en-Bresse native David Lapin moved here three years ago and is glad to have a piece of home where he can take in his country's games. He'll be there Sunday, of course, hoping to celebrate another World Cup win like he did eight years ago.
While he'll miss sharing the experience with his childhood buddies back home, Lapin doesn't want to see a repeat of a rare ugly incident when French fans provoked a scuffle by parading through a nearby Portuguese neighborhood Wednesday after France's semifinal win.
"They're idiots," he said, clearly concerned that the actions of a few could tarnish the reputation of the rest of his countrymen.
French-speaking Quebecers have had ambiguous relations with their ancestral homeland dating back to France's defeat at the hands of the English at the Battle of Quebec in 1759.
Sporting a blue France jersey at the Montreal Alouettes' Canadian Football League game Thursday at Molson Stadium, Jean-Luc Benoit drew chants of "Allez les Bleus!" from passers-by as he stood in the company of friends Yanic Giguere and Marc Snyder.
The three native Quebecers all had different rooting interests in the tournament. Benoit became a fan of Zidane's team in 1998; Giguere became an Italy fan because of a former girlfriend; and Snyder cheers for Spain because he spent some time there.
Benoit, who works for a sporting goods chain, said that Italy jerseys, T-shirts and caps accounted for four of every five items of World Cup merchandise sold. A clerk at a souvenir shop in Old Montreal pegged Italy's percentage at well over 90.
Frank De Rosa works at Cafe Milano on Rue Jarry in the overwhelmingly Italian community of Saint-Leonard. Like many children of Italian immigrants, and thanks to his community and his family, soccer will always be in his blood.
"I grew up watching it with my dad," said De Rosa, who recalled accompanying his father as a young boy to watch an Italy-Sweden tie on closed-circuit television at a local hockey arena. "If Canada was there, I'd be cheering for them."
And what about the home team?
Rooting for Canada just hasn't been an option. This multicultural country of 32.5 million made its only World Cup appearance 20 years ago. In 1986, Canada failed to score a goal and was outscored 5-0 overall while losing three straight games against France, Hungary and the Soviet Union to bow out in Mexico.
作者-北京第二外國語學院英語系王帥
責編：盧爽