[jimbo]

Originally Posted by pondok

I have my money on germany too....
solid football... so different from before

There defence is dubious still, They'll concede for sure against the better teams.

[Mat]

Originally Posted by jimbo

There defence is dubious still, They'll concede for sure against the better teams.

Check out the French they'll kick some ass !!!!

[Jessica Adams]

There was nothing scandalous about Italy’s victory over Australia in the last 16 of the World Cup on Monday. At the end of 90 minutes, the best team on both paper and the pitch had qualified for the quarter-finals with a gutsy display that deserved recognition. Instead, the heroes of Kaiserslautern are insulted, labelled as thieves, asked to feel shame instead of joy. Strewth, what do the Azzurri have to do to gain any credit in this game?

Italy robbed nobody at the Fritz-Walter-Stadion. If anything, Marcello Lippi’s boys were the true victims in a game which turned with the wrongful dismissal of Marco Materazzi. The Inter stopper is no angel, his reputation underlines that fact, yet there was nothing devilish about his challenge on Marco Bresciano. It was mistimed, not cynical, not dangerous and definitely not worthy of an early bath.

Up until that point, it was Italy who were threatening to ripple the net with more purposeful attacking plays. The Luca Toni of three months ago would have comfortably fired his side into a commanding position had he shown a little more composure in front of goal. While Aussie claims that they had more of the ball are true, they did little with it – both before and after the Materazzi injustice.

The Socceroos failed to take advantage of the extra man, perhaps thinking that they had some sort of divine right to dump the three-time world champions out of Germany 2006. What they realise now is that it is going to take some effort to defeat this Italy side, one which is unbeaten in over 20 games. There was simply no way that Lippi’s troops, full of character and fighting spirit, were going to go home as second round casualties for the second World Cup running.

Of course, the main gripe from the men from Down Under comes in relation to the debatable penalty decision. It admittedly wasn’t clear cut, contentious, harsh, but these things happen in football as they do in cricket when it comes to LBW decisions. And you definitely don’t need Hawkeye technology to see Lucas Neill providing Fabio Grosso with a barrier in which to run into. A snick-o-meter may have perhaps been useful to assess whether any contact was actually made, but there was no doubt that Neill was guilty of a dropped catch just before tea.

The disappointment in some of the post-match comments from the gutsy Australians was understandable, but others were nothing short of scandalous. Scott Chipperfield had the audacity to lament that referees seem to favour the footballing superpowers. "They look after the big nations," he said. "They want the big countries through to the semis and finals. It's always the way."

As if the Materazzi red card doesn’t provide enough evidence to ridicule that claim, perhaps Chipperfield should ask his Coach, Guus Hiddink, about what happened between Italy and South Korea four years ago when a certain Byron Moreno was blowing the whistle. Now that was a game in which a team [Italy, that is] was robbed, yesterday’s result was simply fair dinkum.

Summing up, they couldn't send the ball into the net even they had been playing an extra man from the 50th mins on, don't you think they should make retrospection on their ability to score / break the Italy's defence or sit here and grite about the referee being unfair?!?

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by Jessica Adams

There was nothing scandalous about Italy’s victory over Australia in the last 16 of the World Cup on Monday. At the end of 90 minutes, the best team on both paper and the pitch had qualified for the quarter-finals with a gutsy display that deserved recognition. Instead, the heroes of Kaiserslautern are insulted, labelled as thieves, asked to feel shame instead of joy. Strewth, what do the Azzurri have to do to gain any credit in this game?

The Azzuri aren't worthy of credit, Just look at the goings on in Serie A over the past few seasons, Cheating and corruption spring to mind.

Juventus to get relegated to Serie B?

Now now Jessica Italy were shockingly bad at 2002, Remember Vieri ballooning over from 6 yards out?

[rickyvilla]

Your arguements are objective, lucid and rational.

Forza Italia!

RV

[shafin]

both teams played very strong games that night.had the game ended before that penalty call,i would have said that to say one deserved the win more than the other would not be right, but that call really riled me up. like i said before, i totally agree the red card was not a justified red card, and someone had said to me "the ref probably realized he made a mistake for that, and so made up for it with the foul penalty call' - which is a bunch of ****. u cannot make up for one mistake with another, and those are 2 very different calls.
We can say tho that the aussies did not deserve to go out like that. and THAT was what got me angry. Coaches, players and even the Italian fans didn't consider that to be a true penalty. so when people say it was cruel, that it really is.

Let them battle it out in extra time, that would have been the fair way to judge who was the winner of that match. Both teams deflected goals which would have been awesome goals had they gone in, and so in turn were amazing saves. And both teams created really great attacking opportunities and defense tactics. But to say that teams arent deserving of beating another team just cos they are or have been world champions, is not a fair argument, and disses the efforts and great display of football those teams have shown.
Everyone's time comes and ends sometime down the line, and that game was, to almost everyone, looking very close to be the end of the line for Italy's 2006 run, and for Australia to come up and shock the world. Italian fans still had hope of course, as did aussie fans for their victory, but it seemed thats the direction the game was headed in.

I think the aussies can be proud regardless, cos they still did manage to impress the football fans out there. and to hold up so much more of the posession than teams considered to be more skilled is also very impressive. when i heard that australia was in the world cup i was like what?? they play football? but watching the team this year, my respect for them has shot up tremendously. Their defense is amazing, and their ball handling skills and delivery are on point. I thought they played a more colourful game than italy, but unfortunately (which i hope they work on more for 2010) their attack wasnt as strong as the rest of their game.
This was the case for the Brazil game too, which in the 1st half they looked as if they had a shot at beating the current world champs.
Harry Kewell was missing in italy's match, and i think that may have made a very big difference to the game.

They need to concentrate just as hard on getting at least that first goal in, possibly early, so that one conceded goal late in the game will just take them back to square one, and not zero. I wonder if they can get Hiddink back as coach, or if not, remember his teachings, cos they seem to feel alot of their confidence is owed to him. And if they can hold on to that, then they have a shot at going at it again next time.

Had the game gone on to extra time, again..who knows what the result might have been. but it did seem true that Italy looked like they were getting tired, and the Australians seem to have a lot more stamina than many other teams, because even against Brazil they were seeming fresher. At the same time tho, there was no way Shwarzer was stopping that penalty. He read the direction, but wasn't gonna have the reach. Im not a Totti fan, but that was a great penalty shot by him, and i guess he's kinda redeemed himself to his coach and fans.

but overall i have to say that i am more impressed by Australia's performance than Italy's because, using the argument of great football nations, u EXPECT great play from them, so when you see anything less, or see those teams resort to dramatics, that's when the disappointment starts rolling in, and u start wondering if they really are deserving of the titles.
When you see the "smaller" teams go out there fighting and sweating for their win, and then see a "great" team being awarded offside goals, or diving penalties, or having an air of arrogance around them, it does turn things sour. I feel that that hint of fear in everyone, no matter how big or small, makes for a more compelling game, cos in the end, u really never know what might happen.

[shafin]

wow...that was really long! yiikes! lol

[Mat]

Originally Posted by Max

Let's hope your team finds something 'amusing' to do on their way home....

So far my team is still on....:-)

[pondok]

Germany !

[Sleuth]

Originally Posted by thetokyoproject

mate, the world cup has more televised/live viewers than any other sports or broadcast entertainment in the whole world ever (ok, maybe 2nd to the olympics) so i'll let the numbers do the talking...footy is the people's game...
ermm...cough....does anyone outside north america play american rugby? baseball is dominated by one asian country and a communist one outside the US.
and isn't calling the nba champions the world champions a bit misleading (are any other nations allowed to compete???)

I wasn't questioning the popularity, just pointing out that my opinions, as an American, are based more on personal feeling than an immense knowledge of the game because the game doesn't really exist over here. It is going to be the next big thing, though. Athough they have been saying that for about 30 years now....
Baseball is actually dominated by Latin America, regardless of who won the " Whole World Series".