Italy was robbed!

Yet again, Italy was robbed by the referees today. 1 goal disallowed on a non-existent offsides (bringing the total disallowed goals for Italy to 4, which has to be a World Cup record. And 3 of them were highly questionable, esp. in the Croatia game), an expulsion for Totti…the Totti call may have been the worst call I’ve ever seen in a World Cup. How can the referee be so incompetent to make that call in the fucking golden OVERTIME of a World Cup QuarterFinal match? Maybe soccer needs instant replay to correct these atrocious calls. On the upside, Vieri was fantastic in this Cup, proving himself worthy to rank among the all-time Italian greats such as Rossi, Baggio and Chinaglia. Totti was a huge letdown, especially since he was the Serie A Player of the Year last season. Before all the SOCCER fans jump on me to celebrate Italy’s exit, I will say this-just like everything in life, Italy was partially responsible for this outcome. 1) Italian coaches HAVE to change their strategy-they cannot continue to play boring, “protect a 1 goal lead w/ the counter attack” soccer. Italy has as many talented players as any other nation-the coaches should have an all-out, aggressive offensivce style, like Brazil or England or Germany. Fuck the defensive strategy. Defense is for those who have a hard time scoring goals! 2) this brings me to Roberto Baggio, who Trapattoni, that jackass, made sit at home. Let me understand this- I am a coach. I have Italy’s all-time leading World Cup goal scorer (along with Rossi and after today Vieri) that I can put on my team. He was World Player of the Year in both 1994 and 1993. Some people say that he is a little old at 32-33, yet he still led the best soccer league in the world in scoring. He obviously has not lost any of his scoring touch at all.
So what do I do? I choose not to bring him with me! What a smart coach i am! Ok, this has gone on long enough. Let’s go England and Senegal! Your thoughts??

It was a disaster when they lost. And to whom?
To a team who can’t even play the ball, all they do is run and chaotically atack like crazy for 90 mins. No skills only great athleticism. I think the referee wasn’t fair at all. The first penalty was given for nothing, if people were given penalties for things like that then every game should have a few penalties. Totti wasn’t diving, he felt because of the korean’s player leg, the most the referee should have done is to give him a warning. And through all the game koreans were allowed to play rough but italians were given cards for the same kind of play. Even the commentator on espn said that perhaps the equadorian referee is pissed about the Italy’s beating Equador and now takes his revenge. Anyway, I agree the defensive strategy doesn’t work anymore. Every team learned to defend like Italy, they hired european coaches and now good defense is not enough to beat them. I think this championship showed that the general level of teams starts to even out. Also, the european and south american players came to the world cup tired from club championships, whereas the underdog teams took their time to create and train well balanced and rested teams. For example americans spent six months in a camp training for the championship, compare that with two weeks for italians who were already exhausted from playing in their league. Next time I hope the lesson will be well taken and the star teams will be more serious about their preparation. A nice surprise is Senegal’s team - a great discovery of this world cup. I think they have the potential to be one of the favorites in four years. I hope Spain will annihilate South Korea and go England and Senegal!!

I agree

Still cheering for the U.S., although they don’t stand a chance against Germany if they play like they did against Poland or, worse, Holland (I saw that beating in person at CMGI Field). Thank God they finally got Agoos the hell out of there! O’Brien, Wolfe, Reyna, McBride, and Donovan have really stepped up. Sanneh played well against Mexico, too. Second choice is definitely England. They’ve got three guys hurting (most notably Owen and Scholes), but I’m sure that they’ll bring their A-game against Brazil. Should be a great match.

You Italy fans are making me laugh! ROFLMAO!!! Korea dominated that game & led in every stat, you need to get over it! Better luck in 4 years! LOL

I agree that Italy was robbed, but they also fucked up big time. Vieri scored many goals, but he also missed at least 2 100% opportunities to score. One where it was a 2 on 1 fast break, and instead of passing to Totti, he selfishly tried to score by himself, and the other time he got a perfect cross right to his foot 2 feet from the goal, and somehow managed to miss. Ya, they were robbed by the refs, but there’s no excuse for missing on those kinds of opportunities.
How could you say that Italy should play aggresively and offensively like Germany and England? What are you smoking dude? Those two countries are probably the most defensive teams left in the World Cup, and Germany is known as playing defensively as soon as they score a goal. Did you see England V. Argentina? England didn’t move out of their whole 16 for almost the whole second half. Over here we call that style of play a “bunker”. I just hope that the Americans can destroy the German defense once again.
Oh, and one more thing: Spain is the best league in the world, not Italy

I agree the call in overtime was wrong. It appeared that Moreno forgot that Totti already had one yellow card in the books. If he did, he might have let him off with only a warning for diving. The Korean players had to remind him that it was Totti’s second. I didn’t see it as a dive anyway–it appeared that there was some incidental contact. As for the offside calls, they were close, but there is no guarantee they would have resulted in goals, considering how Vieri muffed an easy set up with his right foot. The one goal all the Italian fans groan about went in after the Korean goalie stopped playing due to the whistle. As for characterizing the Korean team as simply running all over the place, that was true even up to a year ago, but Hiddinck has transformed the team completely. Now they attack with skill and intelligence. How can anyone call Park’s deft goal against Portugal lucky? Nevertheless, losing one guy is not disaster, as Costa Rica proved by scoring three goals though they were down to 10. The way Italy was dragging towards the end, I’m not sure that the end would have been that different. Who knows? They might have crashed out via penalty kicks, like they did three times before. Spain will be very tough to beat. In fact, many favor them to win the whole thing, but don’t be surprised if the Koreans do them in too.

Drax-South Korea dominated the game?? To quote the bus driver “What are you smoking dude?”
Bus driver-I had originally planned to mention that Vieri missed two gimme goals, and that was why Italy was to share the blame for the loss, not just the reffing. The post went on so long and I forgot to mention it. Then again, S Korea had a great chance with that bicycle kick. I haven’t seen 2 many international matches other than the World Cup, but England has been very aggressive and high-scoring in this World Cup. Plus, the Premier League is more exicting and high scoring than the Serie A, it seems the Brits like the fast paced game. As a short-attention span Italian-American, I wish Serie A would be more aggressive too. As far as which league si the best…I’m sure everybody feels they know what the best league is. My buddy says its the Premier League. Whatever.
Hyok-its been quite frustrating to watch Italy leave the World Cup 3x in a row without having been beaten on the field of play but rather in penalty kicks. And I will never forget watching Baggio, who as I said earlier, had been voted World Player of the Year that year, (and led the World Cup in scoring) miss a penalty kick. WTF?? Well, I’m still rooting for England and Senegal.

Whiney fans are one of the reasons I stay away from soccer. It is tiresome to read messages of people crying about the refs everytime their team loses. Why is it always the refs fault when a fans team loses? I really doubt that every ref in soccer is horrible. If Italy was the better team they would have won.

If you stay away from from soccer, you migh want to stay away from soccer threads on this board too. Nobody is interested in reading your
bitching unless you post something constructive.

Well the FIFA president Blatter agreed yesterday that Totti did not deserve second yellow and that Italy was a victim of referees mistakes.

Regarding the best league in the world: All you have to do is look at the UEFA champion’s league final fours during the past few years. 2002: Real Madrid (Spain) vs. Barcelona (Spain), and Man. Utd. (England) vs. Bayer Leverkusen (Germany). In the finals, it was Real Against Bayer, and Real won, so that’s something for spain. 2001: Real Madrid (Spain) Vs. Bayern Munich (Germany), and Valencia (Spain) Vs. Man Utd. (I think???). Finals: Bayern defeated Valencia. Once again, 2 spanish teams in the semis, and one in the final. 2000: Real Madrid (Spain) vs. Bayern Munich (Germany), and Barcelona (Spain) vs. Valencia (Spain). Finals: Real Madrid beat Valencia. As you can see, both teams that made the finals were spanish, and another made the semis. During the past 3 years, more than half of the teams that made the UEFA champion’s league final four have been spanish, and spanish teams have won during 2 of the last 3 years. Oh, no Italian clubs have made the final four during the past 5 years. I think that it’s obviously clear which country boasts the best teams in the world.

I feel for ya mate, Italy had the talent on paper to take Korea to the cleaners but opted to hold the one goal lead to a team who’s fitness levels are amaizing it’s was obvious the goal would come nearer the end of the game. Vieri was awful, two chances on his right and he scuffed them both, I think now the Italiens might see the benefit of Pipo Inzaghi beacuse he would have put those chances in the net. However the Italiens can only blame themselves they used the same tatics in 98 and 2000 despite having the attacking talent to win games by out scoring teams. I still say the Italien league is the best in the world, Spain bores the ass of me, England and Germany follow Italy. I tip England and Senegal to win out and I’m goin for an England-Germany final.

P.S Baggio was way too old to play besides it was the tatics that let Italy down not the players.

People whine about the refs in every sport, so I guess you should just stay out of sports completely.

Or maybe the bitchy whiners should stay about of sports completely. It seems weird that someone is telling me to only post constructive posts on a thread that is about complaing and whining about refs.

the italians are such poor LOOSERS that the guy that scored the goal was released by his team in the italian pro league. PATHETIC. the owner of the team said something like “I won’t let a guy that ruined italian soccer ever play for me again” SHUT UP!!! the only reason I am even paying attention to the worl cup is to see how far Amerca can go. if we beat all you euro-idiots you will have NOTHING left!hahahahaha

The United States has been robbed since 1930. It’s just a huge conspiracy against the good guys. Whenever the United States loses, I blame other people.

Actually his contract expired and the club owner decided not to renew it, since the guy didn’t play well in the regular season. But he made most of the situation and won some popularity in Italy.