i-ta-ly! i-ta-ly!

ciao german!!!

fantasyislander said:

that was a fun game to watch

!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!!ITALIA!!!!

july said:

I think I can translate that!



Am I right?

Mach said:

now, i don't care who wins the game tomorrow, as long as italy kicks their butts sunday!!

What A Great Match!!!!!

Another historic one!!!!!

Although it was 0:0 after 90 minutes, there were two exceptional teams of this World Cup 2006!

How unbelievable to lose in the last minute of the extra time when everybody was already thinking about the penalty shoot out!!!
But really cool and "abgezockt", as we say in German, to do it in the 119th minute, which shows that the Italians were the more experienced team.

So the EURO 2008 in Switzerland & Austria (not far from Germany...) is the next thing for the young German team.
And, of course, the match on Saturday...
Finale: Italy - France, Zizou wins!

p.s.:the way the Italians played tonite, offensive and fast, was so different from some matches before as if they didn't take some teams they had to face before seriously.

fathermcmeekle said:

Yes, that's it.

Schlechtes für Deutschland. Bad for Germany.

L'Italia stupefacente molto incredibile. Italy amazing and incredible.

july said:

Stupid faces / amazing, pretty much the same thing!

Congrats to Italy! It was a nice dream for us but we're still proud of our team. Now I hope France will win this and we'll kick Portugal's ass on Saturday.

Sitting down and thinking about it my life feels so empty without soccer now...

Come on Italy!!

My wife and little man are in Naples at the Mo, said the atmosphere was electric last night. Fireworks and horns long into the night, the italians sure know how to celebrate (and they havn't even won yet) I really want to go over for the final, to watch in Italy win or lose would be amazing!

and I miss my family

Forza Azuri!

PREDOMINANT said:

So long portugal. They may of been my sweep team, but yet more play-diving tonight shows how Portugal really play. The last 5 minutes of tonightsmatch though was a corker. Ha, even Ricardo came out.


Bartez is a crazy man. Still, he sure makes good entertainment.

France is a real surprise. They had a slow start but have risen all the way to the World Cup final.
Zidane is great! France deserves to win. Viva le France.

july said:

july said:

I gotta disagree with u. Even tonight, France played poorly. Sure they rock'd against Brazil, but thats about it for their world cup. Henry robbed Spain with the free-kcik that got them ahead, though Spain had seemed to of ran out of steam a little against them to be fair.

Italy have been more consistant, and they often play a dull game of football. This world cup, the group games have been alot more exiting. Like the saudi Tunisia match, or the Austrailia and Croatia game.


The last 16 has not been very good.


England did deserve to beat Portugal, but we were playing poorly aswell. Take out the over-acheivers like lampard, Gerrard, Beckham, and stop relying on big names as opposed to good players, and england might of had a better chance.


I thought it would be a Argentina Italy final. I was half right. Argentina were robbed by penalties, but Germany were second to none during that shootout.

I feel bad for Mexico. They really gave the argies a really good game. Though the goal scored by Rodriguez was probably the best of the tournament. Still, i woulda loved to of seen Mexico go further

thesexofit said:

I think winner is going to be either Italy or France.

I think France has a good chance.

Just call it a guess.

Its a tough call, but my money is on Italy. Still, to see zidane play his last ever game of professional football, by winning the world cup would be pretty awesome i guess. Italy deserve to win outta the 2 teams aswell. Iam glad both have got this far.

italia all the way!!



hey sexofit, what do you think about rooney's sending off? was it deserved IYO? i read online that rooney and ronaldo have made up, and there are no hard feelings, and ronaldo says he wasn't encouraging the ref to give the red card, but IMO that is hard to believe considering that he immediately ran up to the ref and then after rooney got the red he winked at the portuguese bench....

thesexofit said:

I believe it's going to be an awesome final!

abierman said:

ain't no way in hell i'm missing it!!

fantasyislander said:

U've seen tonights match right (or todays in ur case?) and yet again that punk ronaldo was diving. Not just once, but about 3 times. And their manager, scolaris (spelling?) encouarages this sorta play is incredible and bad for the game. Ronaldo should got sent off. A yelloe for the first dive, and another for the second.

Rooney deserved a yellow, but his arguing seemed to of annoyed the referee even more. Ronaldo's "wink" to suggest that the whole team was in on getting rooney off, was a nasty thing to do, knowing that rooney has a temper, and would be frustrated anyway, thanx to englands bizarre choice to play a negative 4-5-1.

Ronaldo was arguing witht he ref, no doubt. U look at it in slow-mo, and its a nasty thing to see the way the portugese were almost forcing for a red card. Portugal are the lowest of the low now. I dont think any team respects them if their manager encourages fake dives 24/7. Holland and Portugal obviously have beef too. That was a sad match in hindsight. Though holland took none of their shit though

thesexofit said:

no, i haven't seen today's match yet. i had to work today and forgot to tape it, so i'll tape it when it re-airs here at midnight. and i missed the portugal/holland match as well... i'm still pissed they're not re-airing that one!! maybe i'll see if my neighbor tivo'd that one....

portugal's diving was annoying to me as well, and i'm glad they didnt make the finals. IMO, rooney didn't deserve a red card, but i've already stated that. it will be interesting to see if/how things change with england under mcclaren now. looking forward to all the matches coming up.... which i'll get to watch thanks to the Fox Soccer Channel!! i'm so happy that my football watching won't end with the world cup!! i could watch a match every day.

fantasyislander said:

Yeah, iam so gutted the world cup is pretty much over. I've given my thoughts on the actual matches (very breifly). U've seen more games then i have, so were u dissapointed with the last 16 knockout games? As i said, the group games were at times, thrilling (like Austrailia actually getting through, and USA going out etc..) and the best i have ever seen in my lifetime probably (i cant remember the korea/japan world cup much, as all the times were bizarre, like it is for u LOL)

Graham Poll will forever be in pub quizzes and trivia quiz's with his "performance". And when that austrialian player just stopped and letthe ball roll off for a goal kick (against Brazil), as he thought he heard the ref blow his whistle, was too funny. Lots of great moments. And mexico scoring first against argentina. Ronaldo's "cant be bothered to run" attiude, Ronhaldino's ever present smile (except against france LOL), Ronaldo's wink, Ronaldo crying, the Germany upset, Beckham puking.....that old geezer scoring for saudi outta knowwhere.....

lots of great moments that i'll forget about soon enough Ur fav moments and thoughts on ur first world cup? And unfortunately, despite international games coming soon, itsa s-l-o-w process for the next world cup. But euro is just 2 years away. and i'll still be here in 4 years time no doubt


As i said, england need to get rid of the big names-shit game players like lampard and even gerrard and try some new blood like lennon, walcott, defoe, and whatever happened to wright-phillips? Hargreaves shocked me last saturday. A job well done. Maybe he knows that as sven was going, he played like it was his last ever england game. Beckham never did much bless him, and i think he will still be in the squad in 4 years time, just on the subs bench by then.


And how crap are england at panalties? Italy have a record at losing on them even worse then us, so they sure as hell didn't want them against Germany.

thesexofit said:

i don't know that i saw more matches than you... i watched when i could, and i had the play by play up at work when i could, but i missed a lot of them. none of the matches really stand out in my mind except for that damned red card against rooney.



and OH MY GOD!! lennon is fast as ****!!! can't wait to watch him with tottenham. i hope to see more of him on the national team in the future! he really impressed me, so i believe i'll be following him as much as i can.

as for beckham... maybe if i'd seen him play a few years ago i'd understand better what all the hype was about.

and hopefully, next time around the US team will have improved a bit so i can cheer for them beyond the group stages i do think that they showed some promise though



interesting to note.... (and i'm sure some men will laugh me off this page with my next comments...) i checked into the women's world cup.... US have won twice, and the last time england didn't even make it to the tournament! talk about a role reversal!!

fantasyislander said:

Yeah, me and my mates were so pissed off that lennon wasn't used more. As for beckham? I like the fella. He used to be CONSTANTLY in our papers before moving to real madrid, and even an orger on here has a pic of him as an av (and is american?), so his status seems to be worldwide (they love him in japan apparantly) and he is a good role model, but really, he is only good on set plays. When i say good, i mean supurb. He does work his ass off though, but i wont miss him in the first team that much. Bring on Lennon i say.


USA are actually ranked 6th in the world by fifa i think? Thats based on stats in how far they get in each world cup in previous years i think? And ever since i remember, they did make it past the group games, and i expected them too this time. But iam very glad ghana did instead. I felt for them a little bit when they went out.


Apparantly, when USA hosted it in 1994, when america broadcast the games actually in the USA, the commentary was so good, it actually inspired other commentators, like in England to take note and up their commentary when it came to knowing player stats etc....

thesexofit said:

i'm ashamed of the US when it comes to this great game.... i didn't even know there WAS such a thing as the world cup until a few years ago... and it's such a HUGE tournament!! a TRUE world match (unlike baseball's "world series"... ) and when i found out that the US had actually HOSTED the world cup... and how little it was advertised in this area... well, actually, it doesn't surprise me all that much. here in nebraska it's football country. american football. i thought the Husker fans were zealots, until i saw the england fans.

thesexofit said:

The whole reason the 'big name players' have 'big names' is because they are consistently the best players. Lampard scores tons for Chelsea, Gerrard practically single handedly won the European Cup and FA Cup with his goals and leadership. Beckham was unbelievably good for Manchester Utd and still plays well for Real Madrid. But the fact is they just didn't perform this world cup to the level of their club showings.

It's all well and good saying replace these guys with young blood, but once upon a time these guys WERE the young blood replacing the old and were expected to achieve greater things than their predecessors. To a certain level, it is better to keep the basic team together because at national level, they don't really play together much and the value of bonding as a team on the field is often overlooked. Just look at France's success with the 2nd oldest team finalists in World Cup history. We do have a habit of replacing experienced campaigners with young inexperienced players forced to play out of position, and it doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere.

Oh, and Sean Wright-Phillips was fantastic for a short while, but since he's gone to Chelsea for the money he's hardly had a look-in and not performed well when he's had a chance. Though I'd rather have had him than bloody unknown Walcott!

As for England's penalties, we definately need to get in a pyschologist and sort that out pronto, it's nothing to do with abilities, it's all to do with mindset.

I guess the only games I'll remember from this world cup will be the disastrous Holland vs. Portugal fiasco, and possibly Germany vs. Italy which was a great game. Not because there weren't good matches, but you always only tend to remember your own country's games, and as for England we didn't have one worth remembering, sadly.