Signing Off- Grazie, From the Bottom of my Heart

March 3rd, 2011 | by: Julian | Comments Off

After nearly three years of writing on here, with much deliberation, I’ve decided that it’s time to move on.

I don’t know if I could express just how much writing on the Italy WorldCupBlog has meant to me. We’ve had some great times and some pretty bad times, though since I came in mid-2008, it’s been mostly bad times for gli azzurri. As an author, I came in as an inexperienced rookie and learned far more than perhaps is evident to anyone reading. I had some posts that I thought were truly fantastic, and some that in retrospect were very poor. The comments have ranged from insightful to downright insulting but I read each and every one since July of 2008, and none of them have gone without consideration.

I won’t be going too far. I can’t say where I will be just yet, but tomorrow you should see my name popping up somewhere on the Offside(This may be relatively obvious, one of the boards just had a major vacancy). The opportunity came along and I just could not pass it up. I love our national team and that love will never flicker, but as a writer I felt that it was time for me to face a new, broader challenge, on a venue where I hope there is more consistent fodder to discuss.

This is far more difficult than I ever envisioned it being. Each and every post I posted, each and every comment I read, has been an absolute honor and a privilege. Sharing my love for footy began as merely a hobby and went on to engender a dream- to break into football journalism. Should that ever happen, the Italy WorldCupBlog will always remain in my heart as the platform where my dream began. Should it fail to happen, I’ll remember this fondly nevertheless as the place that allowed me to dare to dream.

This means that someone will be needed to take over from me. Ian is an awfully busy guy, so anyone interested in co-blogging here with Marco should email me directly- jdemart[at]gmail[dot]com. Marco already knows about my departure and we are looking for someone with enough time to get at least 4 posts up here a week. More information will be available to those who email me, of course.

Again I don’t think I can overstate just how much this meant to me. A sincere, heartfelt thank you goes out to anyone who read one of my posts and participated in the discussions we had. I hope to see you all again very soon in my new post on the Offside. Thus I hope this is more of a ciao, and less of an arrivederci. I’ll always be a reader of this blog and participate in the comments section when I can.

A heartfelt signing off, your one-time blogger, Julian.