Italy’s World Cup championship was marred in the moments after the title was secured on Sunday when several of the team’s players were seriously injured by celebratory hugging and back-slapping.

            “Our players got a little carried away in the moments after the win and forgot how frail they all are,” said head coach Marcello Lippi. “We had guys hugging and dropping all over the place.”

            The most serious post-match injuries occurred when forwards Luca Toni and Francesco Totti heartily embraced in the locker room, only to fall to the ground screeching and wailing in pain. Italy’s medical staff immediately tended to the fallen pair, but were unable to stem the players’ intense pain. Toni reported a broken clavicle and collapsed lung and Totti claimed severe internal bleeding and is said to believe he will not survive.

            “To go from such an amazing high to an extreme low was a shock to all of us,” said defender Marco Materazzi. “And none of us really were spared. I shook hands with our equipment manager and broke every bone in my hand. I don’t think I’ll ever regain full motor function and the pain is unbearable. I black out every few minutes because of it.”

            The few Italian players who were healthy enough to fly back to Italy after the game – most remain in German hospitals undergoing treatment for their various celebration-induced injuries – were injured on the flight or soon after touching down in Rome.

            “We lost Fabio Grosso moments after takeoff,” said Lippi of his team’s defender. “He said the pressure in his ears was so intense that he could not take the pain. I tried to tell him to chew gum or yawn to even it out, but he wouldn’t listen. The pain made him insane and he slit his throat to put an end to it.”

            Grosso’s injury was not the only in-flight mishap. Midfielder Andrea Pirlo says he received third-degree burns on his lips and tongue when a flight attendant served him an espresso that was too hot, and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon claims to have fractured his skull when a jacket fell out of the overhead storage bin and struck him in the head.

            Only Lippi and two players were still standing by the time Team Italy’s plane touched down in Rome, but the two uninjured team members – midfielders Gennaro Gattuso and Mauro Camoranesi – soon met their demise by receiving life-threatening paper cuts while reading about their victory in the newspaper.