OI OI!
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Hey, that’s a giant squirrel!”
And I’m thinking, “HAHAHA! A giant squirrel? You ignorant fool, it’s a WOMBAT.”
The poor kid will have no doubt sustained severe mental damage from his ordeal, after being stuffed into a dead wombat’s crusty pouch, but that just means he’ll grow up to become a fine politician.
But my point here is, Italy are some lucky bastards. I was secretly hoping and wishing the Socceroos made it into the semis like Korea did a couple Cups ago, but I accidentally let it out and told my girl about it, on the 90th minute. And you know what happened. The Spanish referee decides that Fabio “Really Gross” Grosso can’t jump over a toothpick to save his life (or act, even), so he penalises Australia.
It was entirely my fault. If only I could have kept my mouth shut, then it wouldn’t have happened. I have to apologise to my Aussie friends, and I swear it won’t happen again.
Right now, I’m just secretly hoping and wishing that referee Luis Medina drowns in a vat of Victoria Bitter.
Did I just say that out loud? Oops.
June 27th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Apology accepted! All is forgiven. You can come out of hiding!
lol
It was a sad exit, but like I’ve said a few times, it’s not the only bad refereeing decision at the world cup.
I now have two teams for the rest of the tournament. I’ve decided to back England, and whoever is playing against Italy. lol
June 27th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
As much as I’ve *hated* the refereeing at this World Cup, I have to say the Aussies have only themselves to blame for not taking advantage of virtually a whole 2nd half of 1-man advantage.
Tough luck on Aussies for the penalty but it did look genuine at normal pace. Call Grosso a cheat, but then at the 92nd minute and after so much exertion he could just have tripped. What do you know?
Then again I felt the Italians were even more penalised by the sending which was never a straight red card offence. Obviously the Aussies wont argue with that.
Oh and I am neither Italian nor do I support the Azzuris.
June 28th, 2006 at 10:16 am
dab: I’m totally rooting for a good night’s sleep. But that’s just wishful thinking right now.
michael: I DO know, for a fact, that I haven’t the slightest blinking idea how football works. The refereeing decisions make about as much sense as the Crazy Frog. On weed.
I imagine the referee makes decisions based on how many gobs of spit he’s seen expectorated on the pitch up till the whistle: “359! That’s a Prime number — RED CARD FOR YOU HAHAHA!!!”
Or something rational like that.
June 28th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Michael – that penalty NEVER looked like a penalty, even at normal speed it was a dive. They’ve now released footage of the Italians practising taking dives at their training camp.
The Aussies still had two substitutes they could use in extra time and the Italains had none. Even before Materazzi’s sending off, the Australians had 60% possession of the ball and looked the better team. They had a few good cracks at goal, and it was only the excellence of Buffon that saved them. Lesser Goalkeepers wouldn’t have made some of those saves.
Can Aussie blame themselves? No, because even FIFA and the Italaian press have said the penalty was dubious.
That shouldn’t have been a goal … so, that would have gone into extra time, and with a striker of Kennedy’s calibre ready to come on in extra time, Australia could easily have put the ball into the back of the net.
Grosso claimed that Neil used his legs to grapple his leg to the ground … do you REALLY believe Grosso’s version of events? Look at the footage, Grosso was going right, Neils legs were NOT near him, and Neil was rolling left to get away from Grosso …
Yeah, Australia don’t disagree that Materazzi should have had a yellow card. BUT, Italy did handle the ball in the penalty area (should have beena penalty to Australia) and earlier Materazzi did deliberately headbutt Cahill from behind, which the ref mistakenly gave a yellow card to Cahill for, and they say that the reason he gave Materazzi the red was because he heard Cahill and Materazzi talking after the first incident and realised he should have yellow carded Materazzi.
So at the end of the day, Grosso should have been yellow carded for an obvious dive. Even the Italian press admit that, and Italians and Italian fans I know. There’s only been a few people on the planet who disagree with that.
Also,
Just because you neither support Italy nor are Italian doesn’t mean you’re not Anti-Aussie. When the whole world says it was a dive, and FIFA and the Italaian press admit it was a load of crap, how can we believe you when you say you thought it looked like a penalty?
How can you say the Italaians were MORE penalised by the sending off???? A penalty eight second before time is a LOT worse than being merely a man down. Especially when Australia didn’t get a penalty for the Italaians using their hands in the penalty box! We missed a penalty that would have put us one up!
Yes the world is calling Grosso a cheat, because that is what he is. Even Italy is calling him that. You think he tripped? He’s been practicing taking dives! The press released footage of that … do you think a NON-CHEAT would practice taking dives????
Sorry, but I think you really need to have a good look at the facts and the game before you can make such bullsh*t statemetns about the game.
More bad decisions were made against Austalia in that match INCLUDING the penalty we never got.
Italy had ONE bad decision against them, and when you take into account the deliberate headbutting from Materazzi and the fact the Ref heard him andCahill discussing it, the Ref had realised Materazzi was there to cause damage to Australia NOT to play football.
At the end of the day, we were hard done by. The whole world knows that. We’ve accepted it. But, it takes either ignorance of th facts, or a bias for a person to try to argue that Italy deserved that as a win, or even to suggest that it was Australias own fault that we didn’t win.
At the end of the day, the only facts we have is it should have been at least 0-0 and Grosso should have been sent off for diving. In extra time Australia still had two substitues we could have made,which included one of our best strikers Kennedy. Italy were tired and had no substitutes and Guus could ahve had Australia play a completely different formation.
We’ll now never know who would have won that in extra time, but with what was left in reserve, it would most likely have been Australia.
If it came down to the penalty shoot out, Italy are notoriously BAD at them.
Don’t take this comment the wrong way. I’m not angry or anything … well, not at you … but many people have ignored the match as a whole and only concentrated on two incidents, the dive and the red card.
If you take the rest of the match into account – the Italian handball, Materazzi headbutting Cahill from behind, the Italian team practising DIVING, the fact that Neil was on the ground and not moving (and under the rules of the game it means Grosso has to go around him). There is no way the Italians deserved that, and it was a travesty of Justice.
BUT, just adding this so you know, most Australians are pretty stoic about this. We don’t blame Italy, and we dont’ blame the Italian supports (most who have been gracious enough to admit Grosso is a diver). We’re just p***ed off at the way we exited.
If Italy had of beaten us in extra time with skill, or even in the penalty shoot out, we would have been happy to have made it that far. But, we didn’t. It was an obvious dive, and undeserving of a penalty kick.
At the end of the day FIFA has said it was a mistake. It’s about time people stop trying to justify it. It happened, and it was wrong. No b*llsh*t about it being the Aussies fault or being a justified penalty or even trying to claim it looked legit at the time make sit, as NO ONE not even the English commentator ever believed it looked legit.
June 28th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
that wombat looks disturbing
June 29th, 2006 at 1:03 am
well some very interesting points indeed. sure i was ignorant of the fact that italians practice diving. i guess retribution is on the way as 4 of their top clubs take a dive to the deep end. one of their ex-player, pessotto, apparently took it to the extreme the other day by diving from the 2nd floor of a building, almost killing himself.
other than that i am pretty sure i have my facts right.
and i will stress i was so not biased when making that comment. i am not anti-aussie, never have been. half my family lives there and i love the place.
call me stupid, ignorant or anything else, i stand by my initial reaction that there is ground to give the penalty at normal pace, from the angle it was being shown during the action. yes, it is a wrong initial reaction. replay it in slow motion, sure, its very dubious.
its was also the same angle as the referee (he’s just straight in front) although he is much closer. so he made a mistake? is he biased? any other motives?
enter the video.
but as FIFA keep on ignoring calls for its use, its ridiculous of them authorities to say that it was a bad decision. what’s the point of acknowledging mistakes and not doing anything about it. but thats another issue altogether.
i didnt support any particular team for that game. i was pleasantly surprised by all australia’s possession during the game. they defended well in the 1st half and pushed the italians hard.
and then the italian sending off. ah yes materazzi had previously headbutted cahill. did you notice it at normal pace? if yes, congrats. i sure didnt and mr-the-referee didnt seemed to.
but to then even the scores by giving a red card to correct your earlier mistake? thats more lousy refereeing if you ask me. if i work by this logic, then i’d say the sending off was harsh on the italians and so, to even things up, i’ll give a soft penalty. doesnt make sense? then also would materazzi make the tackle so strongly if he was already on a yellow?
see the thing here is that we are debating with maybes and ifs after all has happened. we have replays, different angles, slow motion. and it comes back to the point where whether it is time for FIFA to use the damn videos. how will that affect the game? can’t really tell and they need to test it out.
which brings me to my point that australia ‘have only themselves to blame’ – relax, i agree this is badly phrased. my point is simple. with the unreliable refereeing (do they have a tough job? …), FIFA’s reluctance to use video and so on, it seems very risky to leave it to chance and whether decisions go your way or not.
more so that australia had the opportunity to win the game during the 2nd half. it was within their control and they had the advantage of an extra man. was it a matter of taking the chance or not, being able to?
my observation is that no, they didnt. despite their good will to push forward, creating chances, they fell short. sure, that’s no reason to justify being victims of wrong decision. but what to do?
dude these are two longs comments over something thats done and dusted. well i take responsibility over the fact that my 1st one wasnt very smart and clear and triggered your (lengthy) reaction.
i hope you enjoy the rest of the games.
June 29th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
‘its was also the same angle as the referee (he’s just straight in front) although he is much closer. so he made a mistake? is he biased? any other motives?’
Well, there has been a lot of talk of the bias of the referees towards the ‘big footballing nations’. The referees have been favouring those teams with dubious calls for the entire tournament.
As has been mentioned in the press, the bad calls have been overshadowing the good football.
At normal speed it still looked like a dive to me, and even some of my Italian suporting friends. The English Commentator clearly called it for the dive it was (and he’s, as far as I know, unbiased).
Diving was one of the things the referees were told to look for in the tournament and crack down on. A referee of that calibre should have made the right call. His observational skills should be better than yours or mine.
Still, the one dubious call in Italy’s favour (Materazzi’s red card) doesn’t come close to the dusbious calls made against Australia. Italy handled the ball in the penalty area … no penalty. Cahill gets headbutted by Materazzi, a yellow card for Cahill … the list goes on. [Yes, I did notice that one at normal speed].
Australia not taking advantage of being one man up? Well, the game wasn’t over, it was 8 seconds until extra time and Australia still had two substitutions to go. Kennedy, one of our best strikers was still on the bench.
Italy had run out of substitutions. Knowing Guus, he was counting on Australia getting to extra time, where he was going to put on good attacking side to get that goal. So Australia would have been more than capable of getting a goal in extra time.
Tim Cahill actually made a statement to that effect too. Which is why he is on record as saying they were going to score in the next ten minutes. It comes down to strategies and tactics, and Italy had run out of changes to make.
Whether Australia would have actually scored will be a matter of controversy.
So, at the end of the day, it’s true that Australia has to live with a bad refereeing decision. That’s never been in dispute, we’ve already accepted that fact. I just react to people who have tried to justify it, as it’s not justifiable. Even the Italian press and FIFA admit that.
If you thought from your observation that it was a penalty when you first saw it, then I’d say that has to do more with your observational skills. Almost everyone else saw it at that speed as a dive.
I don’t know how much soccer you watch, or how good your observational skills are, I mean, it was late at night, but you’re clearly in the minority when it comes to what was seen.
But, at the end of the day, Italy cheated by Grosso diving in order to get through and Australia have to wear that.
FIFA, the world press and even Italians have been quite nice in their support for Australia over what happened. [Whcih makes us Aussies ahppy]. But, even at normal speed the world saw it for a dive. I can’t change what you thought you saw at that speed.
So yeah, let’s enjoy the rest of the games.
July 23rd, 2006 at 9:14 pm
I thought that was a kangaroo?