Euro 2016: An open letter from Simone Zaza

The penalty will be spoken about for ages

Dear fans,

Welcome to the world of Zaza. All my life, I wanted to be famous, to be known for something. After being in this world for 25 years, I began to wonder whether I would actually be able to fulfill my wish. And then the game against Germany happened.

Antonio Conte was supposed to start me, but apparently, I was too bald for him. His logic was that my hair-beard combination makes it impossible for my team-mates to take me seriously and that they would spend most of their time on the pitch laughing at me instead of making the pass.

So I was on the bench, waiting patiently for my chance to come while looking at the bromance pics of me and Morata with teary eyes.

But it never came.

I waited for 120 minutes before Conte decided to sub me in to take one of the penalties in the shootout. This was my chance. The queue I have been waiting for all evening.

Scoring from the spot-kick is a common thing, especially when you are the first taker. There is nothing special with that. People almost always remember the winning spot-kick taker. And so I made a plan—an idea that made me immortal.

I decided to shoot my kick over the bar. There is nothing glorious about missing a penalty either, so I had to make sure that it was done in a grand fashion.

That infamous moment

Once I was playing with my 2-year-old nephew and he was taking a penalty against me. Before he could begin his run-up, he pooped in his pants. Since he wasn’t wearing any diapers, he took weird and tiny steps to complete his run-up and shoot the penalty.

I suddenly remembered that incident and decided that it would be the style I would be using before skying the ball to Mars and becoming an internet meme legend overnight.

And it happened exactly as I hoped for.

My penalty miss not only became the talk of the night, it overshadowed Jerome Boateng’s Kate Winslet impression, something that seemed impossible when Boateng pulled it off. This in itself was the greatest achievement of my life apart from being able to touch my beautiful friend Alvaro Morata.

Italy might have been knocked out of the Euros, but I did amazing—my penalty is now more talked of than Lionel Messi’s retirement, so all of you can me thank me for saving you from that travesty. At least everyone is laughing now.

And this is why I wrote this letter, to reveal why I missed the penalty. Also, Alvaro, I miss you a lot already, please take me with you to Real Madrid. I promise I won’t miss penalties there.

Sincerely,

Simone Zaza.