World Forums

tronche - I'm not kidding. I thought that it was Italy's second worse match of the tournament.

France controlled the game in the second half and in over-time.

Eusebio - "Of course, defender was in his way "

Ah yes. But therein lies the foul. Just because Grosso fell does not mean that a foul was not committed.

Eusebio wrote:Falc. Football is a game of phisical contact. The ref is there to judge if the contact was foul or not. It was refs bad judgement on that and I can't see any reason for his PK decision. The ball was already out of Grosso's reach and he knowlingly faked the contact and thus foul. Of course, defender was in his way - that's what defenders do. Defend. Unlikely De Rossi's elbow which was in no way useful for defending purposes, LOL!

C'mmon. Give it a rest. Italia is a champion and we all aknowledge that.

Yes, it is a game of physical contact. I know that all too well from my own experience. If that physical contact, whether it be hard or light, impedes a player from continuing his action, then it is a foul. If the Australian did not get in the way, Grosso would have had a chance for a shot on goal. The thing is that the defender could have stopped Grosso without fouling him if he stayed on his feet and cut off his space. But like a fool, he went for a slide tackle that cost his team the match. And Italia then went on to become champions.

Eugene,

I got the DVD's THANK YOU. I owe you, but there is one thing: the final match DVD did not contain the PKs, but instead there was a video of your sister in law. THANK YOU. ;)



Eugene in rage, Bineaz in blue. ;)

tronche wrote:Ukraine is a boring team to watch and Italy didn't "destroy" us 3-nil.

capito Einstein ?

It's ok, France has a more than ample chance to draw Ukraine 0-0. Perhaps, twice.

Just because Grosso fell does not mean that a foul was not committed.

Eh?? I hate double negatives. They're sneaky.

Azzurro wrote:Eugene,

I got the DVD's THANK YOU. I owe you, but there is one thing: the final match DVD did not contain the PKs, but instead there was a video of your sister in law. THANK YOU. ;)



Eugene in rage, Bineaz in blue. ;)

Well, the Gods of video recording played a poor trick on me. I set up recording in advance and did not account for OT. By the time OT rolled around, DVD recorder dutifully turned off. I turned it back on for the second OT, though, but there was no room for penalty kicks. Sorry.

P.S. I can make a recording of my S-i-L available to you if you please.

Even if only to gloat in a manner of "I woz ther"

WC Review

As I said after the Final, Italy played better in the First Half. France better in the Second and in ET. I have no problems admitting that. That much was plainly obvious. In fact, the worst part of the game was when the halftime whistle went as I knew that would be the end of Italy's good spell and France would start waking up. What I particularily liked was Italy's response after the French goal. They really took the game over and were very determined to score a goal.

Italy looked very dangerous on set peices (Toni's crossbar, Pirlo's FK) other than that the French defense was excellent and didn't allow anything. From open play France had 2 excellent chances (Ribery's shot that went wide, and Zidane's header that Buffon came up with the save).

As for the entiure tournament, well we can argue Italy had the "easier" route to the finals, as France had to play Brazil, Spain and Portugal, but by the same token, that was their fault by finishing 2nd in their MUCH easier group. Having said that, "easy games" do not exist anymore at this level, so I'm not sure I buy into this too much either.

Look. In 1998 France scored the most goals and conceded the least and based on that alone, I considered them worthy winners. This time Italy did the same and my opinion doesn't change.

Australia

well it was a shame that a stiff like Iaquinta wasn't able to score on that excellent chance about 5 minutes from the end as the whole PK-incident would have been avoided altogether.

Neill was an idiot for impeding his progress (and he definitely did), but still it was a soft call. But just as outragoeous was the red card we got at the 50 minute mark. It was clearly a make up call.

Eusebitch

go play on a highway

P.S. I can make a recording of my S-i-L available to you if you please.

What's an "S-i-L"? Don't go to any trouble, I'm sure they are on the net somewhere.

Felix

in your eyes, which German team was better ? The 2002 team or the 2006 team ?

From what I remember of the 2002 team, Voller used Neuville a lot more than Klinsmann did.

Sister in Law.

Why don't you want to see her? Is she a munter?

S-i-L

OH duh in that case...let me think about it.

Fuquit wrote:Sister in Law.

Why don't you want to see her? Is she a munter?

What's a "munter"?

Pram - "Just because Grosso fell does not mean that a foul was not committed"

Now that's some logic. How about this one: "Just because Grosso didn't fall does not mean that a foul was committed"

See?

What I wanted to say that not every phisical contact between defender and striker is foul. It's not a game of chess for Pete's sake.... What did Grosso do? He fell over a leg of defender although he could have comfortably avoided it and because the ball went away. I've seen thousands of similar situations and THAT was not a foul. If it wans't for Italian player all of you would be screaming FOUL, FOUL

Eusebio - "What did Grosso do? He fell over a leg of defender although he could have comfortably avoided it and because the ball went away."

Yes. But the defender committed an obstruction and that is a foul.

You are concentrating way too much on what Grosso did and not what the defender did.

What I can see is that it was a 50/50 call. For some reason, you don't.

You refuse to examine what the defender did, which was create an obstruction. The obstruction was there and therefore it was a foul. The ref awarded the PK, period. If he wouldn't have awarded it, I would still be saying the same thing: like MOST PKs, it's a 50/50 call.

Or like what most Serie A coaches say: it's a PK when the referee DECIDES that it's a PK.

It's interesting to note that the ref who gave that PK continued to work in the next round. If it was such an outrageous call he would have been sent home, no ?

Did Lucas Neill "impede his progress" ? I certainly think he did. Did Grosso make damn sure to fall ? Absolutely. Looking at the ref to make sure he got the call was a nice touch too

Pabs wrote:It's interesting to note that the ref who gave that PK continued to work in the next round. If it was such an outrageous call he would have been sent home, no ?

I think if we sent a ref home for every outrageous call, we would have been left with no refs by quarterfinals...

Gentle Materazzi -

http://www.leenks.com/link45153.htm

Now that's a brute !

Premeditation....

Damn...great video of the new Italian icon !!!

shame !

Geeeeze, Zidane is such a fucking victim! This is ridiculous how there is such a need to make Materazzi the bad guy in this affair. All of the Italians here will tell you that he is no saint. He can be an idiot with some of his tackles. But in this one incident, he didn't do anything. Sure, he said some words to Zidane but as we use to say as kids:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!

Look, Zidane lost it. Big deal. Not the first, not the last. If anyone thinks that a few words spoken by Materazzi made Zidane frustrated, then you need to learn a lot about footballers. That was just the final straw. His frustration was built up and at that point, he let it out of his system. Some guys just yell. Some throw a fist. Zidane goes with the head butt. To each his own. BTW, looking at this picture:



if the red circle was around Zidane's head, would we not quote it as the look of an assasin?

agreed, Zidane was in a second state that night but Materazzi overpassed the red line.I believe Lippi has something to do with that since he knew Zidane's down side pretty well

anyway, it is just good fun and I will never forget Zidane's panenka over Buffon

Red line? To be honest, that is subjective. Some may say that Zidane passed the red line when he got sarcastic with Materazzi. But you did not see Materazzi head butt him. Both players were bantering back and forth. Kind of what we do here. Zidane decided to take it to the next level. So I am not sure who passed the red line at what point.

LOL @ ZZ being a victim.

he's a victim alright. A victim of being born to a whore mother in a shithole city with a embarrasing heritage.

FORZA MATRIX 23

BTW, I agree that Zidane looked like he was in a different state of mind.

Compare how he was during the handshakes and cointoss on July 9 to how he usually is during these things. In the Brazil game he was all smiles, back in 1998 he was laughing with ADP and pinching his cheeks. Zidane was in another world in the Final.

Fried Chicken

pabs

A victim of being born to a whore mother in a shithole city with a embarrasing heritage.

It's always about you isn't it?

bwhaaaaaaa.....

seriously speaking, how is the African team that represents France doing these days ?

Come on Pabs. We don't need the trash talking around here. Save it for the pitch. Per favore.

hehehe, we do indeed do trash-talking. It's the French that resort to head-butts.

admit it, Frenchies. Without Africa you guys would be eternal semi-finalists like the 1980's

and without cheating scandals(82, 06) and fascism (34, 36)you raviolis would never win the world cup.

hehehe....

4>1

ps: you're right. I saw Buffon cheating too. He was using his hands

and don't forget 1938 either !

A World Cup won in YOUR National Stadium

France 2006: 3rd most undisciplined team

Did France play any friendlies (in more sense than one) against Germany in 1940-1944 or was she offering a stiff resistance to getting tipped by them?

OK, no more historical allusions:)

Mussolini had the ref's kids kidnapped