Australia - Italy

6 seconds away from extra time. It was never a penalty, what an agonising way to go out.

If England had been on the wrong end of that 'penalty', no Pizza bar in the country would have been safe....

quote:

Originally posted by rch:
What a shame! The much better team on her way back down under...

If they were the better team they'd have scored a goal in the 2nd half with the advantage of the extra man they had. Italy played it very well and mugged the 'Roos' at the end. Sorry but the better team won.

quote:

Originally posted by rackkit:

quote:

Originally posted by rch:
What a shame! The much better team on her way back down under...

If they were the better team they'd have scored a goal in the 2nd half with the advantage of the extra man they had. Italy played it very well and mugged the 'Roos' at the end. Sorry but the better team won.

I think it was 11 against 11 in the second half - the Italians had an extra man he was wearing black. I thibk Ukraine will reach the semi-final on penalties.

quote:

What a shame! The much better team on her way back down under...

Hardly.

A good team would put away a team of 10 men...

Joe90,

you obviuously did not see the Italian hand ball in their 18!

Italy don't play beautiful football, they play for results. They were far to good for us Aussies. Our acting skills were no match in comparison...

Dave

A very painfull way to go out in the end.

Although dirty I didn't think the Italian defender deserved a straight red. People above do have a point about the fact that the Aussies did not capitalise against 10 men.

As unintentional the penalty challenge was it was still poorly mistimed. Going to ground like that was always going to invite problems. The Italian had to do very little to earn it.

Bad luck but not a huge ref scandle as some seem to see it.

When a defender mistimes a tackle that badly in the box he's really only got himself to blame when the penalty is awarded.

What a pity, the red card and the penalty were harsh but that is soccer, sometimes you just don't win. Specially against Italy, it reminds me of the '00 semis against Holland (I am dutch).

Soccer was almost becoming popular here but I suspect that the penalty has send it back into obscurity behind AFL, cricket and the rugbies.

quote:

behind AFL, cricket and the rugbies.

and may I remind the super powers of football that we have dominated the world all of these sports. Not bad for a country on 18 million where soccer is the fourth code. We even won this RoboCup

Pass the remote and bring on The Ashes.

Life is sometimes full of bad refereeing decisions...oh well back to the beautiful music (snigger snigger).

Dave

quote:

Originally posted by Steve G:
When a defender mistimes a tackle that badly in the box he's really only got himself to blame when the penalty is awarded.

Phil Neville knows all about that....

Phil

quote:

It was never a penalty

Yep, it was.

Referee made the decision and in football, the referee is ALWAYS correct.

"may I remind the super powers of football that we have dominated the world all of these sports."

Well AFL - is Austrailian Football league - I think the clue is in the name of the sport!

Rugby - 'dominate the world'. Well that wasn't the case at the last world cup and I really think your neighbours with the black shirts have more of a claim on that level of hyperbole.

Cricket - True - the Aussies have a tremendous record in international cricket. As you say - bring on the ashes.

Well done Simon,

Great observations. Yes you are only as good as you last game.

Have you forgotten about rugby league...despite us getting smashed in the last tri series by NZ. We had not lost a series or tournament for thirty years until the Kiwis gave us that touch up.

AFL that was a joke...more than the US World Series of baseball.

Wasn't the last Ashes a classic...if the Aussies had of survived that vital second test that you guys won by two runs. Marvellous!!

Don't you just love sport....

Dave

I love it but, if I am honest, I find watching England in the world cup far too stressfull!

If we were three up with 5 mins to go then maybe just maybe I could start to enjoy it. That scenario appears unlikely

I am not greatly optimistic with regards to the ashes based on Englands current form. Don't even mention the tennis!

I didn't mean to rub it in about other sports, we are on the wane in most of them.

In Australia the soccer federation has tried very hard to pick the game up. A couple of years ago the Australian Soccer Federation went broke. In 2003 the internationals in based in Europe were invited to come down to play the other Oceania countries in the qualifiers but they had to buy their own tickets and accomodation.

Australia was based in the Oceania Confederation with mostly rugby countries, NZ, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa etc. These have very light weight soccer teams, even NZ are mostly amateurs. The effect was that we'd only play two serious games every 4 years. Usualy against number 5 of South America or Asia (Urugay 2x, Iran and Argentina from memory). The Argentina game was sch a novelty that the players swapped shirts with Maradonna before the match even started. It also explained why the Australians always went in so hard in friendly internationals(eg Holland a few weeks ago and France 4 years ago) as it was the only time the players got to measure themselves against major countries. It didn't have much to do with trying out different formations or pairs of strikers.

Now in the the last few years the federation has been recreated from scratch, the old ethnic based clubs have been dissolved and new clubs have been created in the major cities. Incessant nagging has got FIFA to move us to the Asian confederation which should give us competitive qualifying rounds every two years, instead farcical mismatches that end in 30-0.

There is no shortage of junior soccer players in Australia but until now the talented kids switched to the other codes as there wasn't a living to be made from soccer in Australia. The world cup has been hugely popular here. Crowds of 10,000s have braved winter cold to watch matches in city squares at 3am. But the danger is that the serious kids will switch to the codes where games can't be spoiled by one or two bad umpiring decisions.

Gusi,

All things in life can be affected by bad umpiring. God forbid poor souls who are sentenced to death incorrectly.

The serious juniors will continue on, why wouldn't you? A top flight soccer star can be on a million a month. Show me a rugby or league player on that sort on mad stuff and getting his head and body belted into arthritis at 40!

Simon, I feel for you. My beloved Knights lost about 17 games in a row last season.

Dave

I thought the Italians played their most "honest" game for many years. There were very few theatrics, until Totti came on that is. More players should take on the attitude of the Aussies, get up after the tackle, not pretend you have been brutally maimed.

However, the Azuri still looked more dangerous with 10 men than the Socceroos despite all their posession.

I hope it does not diminish the view of soccer down under. It does give FIFA a real problem to deal with though........Cheating!

From the Ref's angle you can understand him giving the penalty. Mind you if the defender was a pile of Shit the Italian would have jumped him easily enough!

Milan

The penalty was unjust but inevitable.

Oz should have gone at the Its (I am half It) and got a couple up before that.

Although I like Fra usually (IMO Henry was a plonker), I am a bit sorry for local Span people and their usual dashed hopes.

Thanks to the 2 Oz people winning 20-20 Holders Somerset World Record in that other Oz sport.

quote:

Originally posted by David Robert Bell:

quote:

behind AFL, cricket and the rugbies.

and may I remind the super powers of football that we have dominated the world all of these sports. Not bad for a country on 18 million where soccer is the fourth code. We even won this RoboCup

...oh well back to the beautiful music (snigger snigger).

Dave

That would be Australian beautiful music?
(snigger, snigger)

sorry Doc,

Italian actually, "That's Amore" (snigger snigger) ...just like Muttley from the Wacky Races.

Muttley

Dave