Win by cheating, professional divers. The guy didn’t even touch him…he dodged the tackle then tripped up his own feet and dived.
Let’s hope he’s banned and fined.
He should have got a red card for his stunt, not a spot kick..
What a move..bummer for Australia, they played such a brave game. Almost 60% possession to the socceroos.
Urgh…what a shitty way to win a game.
Yeah… They just won the game at last second… damnit! Aussie just don’t have their luck… bad bad bad… 🙁
was cheering for Italy though.
however I do agree that the call that ref took was lousy.
ah, i was prepared to watch ET, and just 5 seconds before the match ends …. socceroos were just unlucky
Yea, totally agree with you there,poor Socceroos,too bad they didn’t have Kewell..he could have made a difference.
yeah, the whole team sucked big time last night. FUCKKKKK.
Yeah. And look how practically the whole Italian team converged on the professional syncronised diver the moment the ref blew his whistle and pointed to the spot? It’s like they congratulated him for a job well done at conning the ref and getting the penalty.
Sucks big time.
Having said that, the Ozzies had only themselves to blame for not having a sharper strike force. I can’t believe the number of chances they had but either missed, didn’t take or saved by the Buffon.
Or maybe they should have broken Buffon’s leg first.
la la laa…
thats why i felt ashamed and obliged to blog about azzurri’s victory. I thought it would play another extra time to get in. argh!
so to say no real competition in worldcup 2006.
it was most definitely a dive – no team deserves to go out like that…
not sure why, but after constant replay, i saw the aussie defender elbow back(when he was on the ground) at the italian defender leg which causes him to fall.
did i saw wrongly?
I agree. Quite a bummer. Was rooting for the roos – the underdogs.
actually, if you look carefully, the defender did put his left elbow up to try to block grosso from progressing, and whilst the contact might have been minimal, it was contact nonetheless.
if the defender had been sliding in with his foot to get the ball and made minimal contact i will admit it was harsh. however here, the defender had his arse on the ground and there was no way he could have gotten the ball legally. he intentionally tried to pull grosso down without being too obvious.
further, the defender is none other than LUCAS NEILL, the piece of shit sorry excuse for a footballer whose only purpose on the field is to kick people and not the football. had it been a cleaner more honest player my opinion might have been different.
but anyway, for what it’s worth, australia played a much better game
The Aussies were unlucky to lose.
Yeah, it’s a hell of an exit from the World Cup. But, not the first bad refereeing decision, and most likely not the last one in this tournament.
We’ll nickname Grosso “The Submarine” from now on. DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!
Personally, I think if it went to extra time it’d probably have ended up as 0-0 and then gone to a penalty shoot out [Italy has a problem winning in penalty shoot outs anyway].
Pity Australia couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net during normal time. Buffon was too good on the day.
The good news is Neil is going to Barcelona soon (so at least he’ll be at a good team), and International coaches are lining up to coach the Socceroos. We’ll be back better than ever next time. It took a referee to knock us out this time.
I’m just glad the news through out the world is reporting it for what it was. I was even reading about it in US papers [SHOCK!!!]. Like my mother said, the world was watching.
I feel a little sorry for Italy though. I’m sure it’s not the way they wanted to make it to the quarter finals. If they end up winning the cup, it’ll probably be as hollow as the Argentinian Fist of God win.
iiiii – If you look carefully you’ll see you’re wrong. Lucas Neil isn’t a dirty player, he got ZERO yellow cards and ZERO red cards during the tournament. The replay shows he was trying to roll out the way of Grosso, not impede him. Grosso was going to his right, and Lucas Neil rolled to Grossos left … that can’t be called impeding in anyones book!
When it comes to win-at-all-costs situation, you can count on the Italians – they have the history and the experience to back that up.
I think the Italians won it quite fair.
Lucas didn’t have to charge to him like that. If you block the player when he wins the ball, it’s a fault, and that also depends on the ref. Sometimes the ref let it go, sometimes he blows.
Want to blame the ref? Come one, he already did the favour for Aussies by sending Metarazzi off (which I think was equally harsh as well), and for entire 40min, they can’t make anything out of it.
The Italians didn’t win it, the Aussies lost it.
Now they know how the Italians felt 4 years ago.
Spiller – Lucas Neil didn’t block the player. In soccer, as well as other sports, if you’re not moving (holding your ground) which is what effectively Neil was doing once he was on the ground, then there is no reason he needs to move in order to let the player pass.
Neil went to ground early, and as most newspapers around the world have reported, it is in no way a penalty. The out cry hasn’t just come from Australia, it’s come from the US and many other national newspapers around the globe. The world was watching and everyone knows it wasn’t a penalty.
Also, as far as the Materazzi decision went, you have to also take into account the foul Materazzi got away with moments earlier.
Cahill went up to head the ball, and Materazzi came at him from behind, and the footage clearly shows he deliberately headbutted Cahill, yet, Cahill got the yellow card. There was no way Cahil could have known where Materazzi was, and Materazzi clearly wasn’t playing the ball, so he not only got away with a deliberate foul, but Cahill copped the card.
So, the Materazzi sending off was a response to the earlier mistake the referee had made against Cahill. [Because the ref apparently heard the talk between Cahill and Materazzi after the incident and realised he’d booked the wrong guy].
So, if Materazzi had been given a yellow card when he’d fouled Cahill to begin with, then he would have got a second yellow for the tackle against Bresciano.
It’s true that the second tackle was only deserving of a yellow card. Even Australians acknowlege that. It was a clear cut case of the referee trying to make amends for his earlier mistake.
Still, Grosso had an obvious dive at the end there. It wasn’t deserving of a penalty, and even other Italain supporters have acknowledged that.
The Aussies never lost that match, the referee gave it to Italy with ten seconds left.
Do we know how it feels to be Italy four years ago?
No, we just know how it feels like to be Australian, as we’ve always had it made harder for us in the World cup.
We have players like Kewell and Viduka etc who clubs refuse to let go to play in our Qualifying rounds, so we can never field our best teams.
We have had the hardest path into the world cup, where we used to have to win in the Oceania group, then play a South American team, and an Asian team before quailifing. Luckily that’s changed now, and we’ll be competing in the Asian Group from now on.
We beat France when they were world Champions 2-0, we’ve beaten England 3-0 and we even beat Brazil earlier 1-0 in the confederation cup and knocked them out … yet we still earn no respect.
Well, we’ve finally got the cream of our players together and we’ve proven we can hold the best teams out. It took a dive and a bad refereeing decision to beat us. So we didn’t lose by a long shot. We won that, because we proved our point.
The big loser on the day is the game of soccer, as once again this tournament is riddled with bad refereeing mistakes. Not just that game, the entire tournament.
There is a reason they were chanting ‘B*LLSH*T! B*LLSH*T!’ in the streets of Melbourne after the match!
But why not look at the other matches. It’s common knowledge that the Referees have been favouring the ‘BIG’ soccer nations, making sure decissions go their way. There hasn’t been a match with Australia in that the referees didn’t make bad mistakes against Australia.
Whether it’s allowing goals where two Japanese players kamikaze into the goalkeeper to stop him saving th goal, or blowing the whisle just as a third goal for Australia goes in the back of the net.
We’ve had to play twelve men on the pitch every single game we’ve played in.
So ‘NO’, we’ll never know what it’s like to be Italy 4 years ago, and might I add, why they hell should we? We didn’t have anything to do with the Korea Italy match.
There is a reason the world is reporting that this match finished in a farce. It’s because it did.
If you think the Italians won this game fairly, then you’re either fooling yourself or you’re trying to justify it to yourself somehow.
Did Buffon deserve man of the match … yeah, that’s one thing I think someone got right.
But, Italy didn’t deserve that win, and the whoel world knows that.
That’s why for the rest of the tournament I have two teams, England and whoever is playing against Italy.
wow o_0
“So, if Materazzi had been given a yellow card when he’d fouled Cahill to begin with, then he would have got a second yellow for the tackle against Bresciano.”
If he already on a yellow, he “might” not tackle him the way he did, right?
“Lucas Neil..”
Well, too bad, ref’s decision. But hey, if you want to argue about ref’s decision, there isn’t enough space for us here, but what about Kewell’s goal against Croatia? Wasn’t that debatable as well?
“Well, we’ve finally got the cream of our players together and we’ve proven we can hold the best teams out. It took a dive and a bad refereeing decision to beat us. So we didn’t lose by a long shot. We won that, because we proved our point.”
Yes, but you also can’t beat a 10-men team for 40min.
“Did Buffon deserve man of the match … yeah, that’s one thing I think someone got right.”
Well, for me, first half – Mark Schwarzer, second half – Cannavaro.
“But, Italy didn’t deserve that win, and the whoel world knows that.”
Bad luck. Too bad we can’t have a draw eh? Well, you’ve made your point, and all I can say is, good luck to England and whoever is playing against Italy 🙂
FUCK THE ITALIANS..SUPPORTERS OF ITALY ARE ALL MOTHERFUCKERS WHO SUCK COCKS IN HELL!!
‘If he already on a yellow, he “might” not tackle him the way he did, right?’
Possibly. We’ll never know. But as I said,
‘It’s true that the second tackle was only deserving of a yellow card. Even Australians acknowlege that.’
‘but what about Kewell’s goal against Croatia?’
Yeah offside, but in a match where Viduka got rugby tackled to the ground in the goal box (should have been a penalty) and nothing happened, Viduka got punched in the face and nothing happened, the Croaitians handled a SECOND time in the box and no penalty plus Poll blew the whistle right when Aloisi scored our third goal and as such disallowed it as it was ‘after the final whistle’ PLUS numerous other dubious decisions against Australia, the Kewell goal doesn’t even make up for the rest of the farce that the game was.
But yeah, the Australian media and Australian accept that the goal was offside. We’ve never said it wasn’t … but, if they were refereeing better, then we would have won that by a lot moe goals.
Even the analysts on the BBC said it should have been an Australia 4-2 victory (even taking the Kewell goal off Australia).
‘Yes, but you also can’t beat a 10-men team for 40min.’
I was refering to having the cream of our players at the world cup. We certainly didn’t have our cream on the field against Italy. Emerson was out of the match for getting a red in spite of the fact he didn’t even foul anyone. Kewell was out with Gout. But, even when there were eleven men on the Italy side we were dominating possession. It was 58% to 42% at half time … so only a few percentage points. Even Buffon said it doubted Italy would score in the second half.
‘Bad luck. Too bad we can’t have a draw eh?’
Well, that was the point. It was bad luck, not a clear win for Italy.
Even the Italian media is claiming the Penalty was a crock, so I’m feeling pretty good about that.
I’m sure if Italy had of scored in extra time or in the penalty shoot out then we’d have accepted the defeat, but scoring from a penalty given from an obvious dive (which, like I said, even the Italian media says shouldn’t have been given) is a bad way to exit.
But, most of us Aussies are pretty stoic about it all. I’ve really only been replying to anyone who tries to claim Italy won it fair.
It’s pretty much the consensus in the world that the refereeing has been woeful.
Some blame the referees. Other’s like Hoddle are blaming FIFA for their stupid orders to the referees.
But soccer is suffering as a whole.
it was a bad call, but hey…
australia had a one man advantage for 40 minutes…
nuff said
Thank god those damn Italians team are getting relegated for match fixing, eg Juventus. The rate these players are play acting, no wonder. If they win the WC, god is blind.
I am surprised nobody commented that Totti’s penalty was very well taken. 🙂
lol.. my friends… football is all controlled by bookies my friends… italy gave .5 ball and lots of ppl were betting on italy that night… what i heard was when materazzi was sent off… situation changed and the aussies were giving .5 ball… so most of the ppl who bet on italy jumped ship and went on to bet on aussies… so see what happens if you top up your bet on aussies… at the end of the day… bookies wins… welcome to the world of online gambling…
VZ – Yes, Totti’s penalty was very well taken. . Anyway, it’ll always be over shadowed by the bad call.
I’m just glad fat-arse Kenny Sia’s team has lost. I cannot stand the fat cunt poser, he thinks he’s a soccer guru all of a sudden, then decides to support Australia (obviously he thinks he can relate to that country after spending a few pitiful years there). Also likes to pose like he’s a muscular bodybuilder when in actual fact he is a lump of wobbly lard.
People like Kenny Sia make me sick!
KENNY SIA IS A FUCKING FAT LARDY HAIRY ASSHOLES..