Italy win was fair dinkum Claims that Italy robbed Australia of a place in the last eight of the World Cup are rife across the globe today. But, as Antonio Labbate argues, the unappreciated Azzurri are the true victims -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was nothing scandalous about Italy’s victory over Australia in the last 16 of the World Cup on Monday. At the end of 90 minutes, the best team on both paper and the pitch had qualified for the quarter-finals with a gutsy display that deserved recognition. Instead, the heroes of Kaiserslautern are insulted, labelled as thieves, asked to feel shame instead of joy. Strewth, what do the Azzurri have to do to gain any credit in this game? Italy robbed nobody at the Fritz-Walter-Stadion. If anything, Marcello Lippi’s boys were the true victims in a game which turned with the wrongful dismissal of Marco Materazzi. The Inter stopper is no angel, his reputation underlines that fact, yet there was nothing devilish about his challenge on Marco Bresciano. It was mistimed, not cynical, not dangerous and definitely not worthy of an early bath. Up until that point, it was Italy who were threatening to ripple the net with more purposeful attacking plays. The Luca Toni of three months ago would have comfortably fired his side into a commanding position had he shown a little more composure in front of goal. While Aussie claims that they had more of the ball are true, they did little with it – both before and after the Materazzi injustice. The Socceroos failed to take advantage of the extra man, perhaps thinking that they had some sort of divine right to dump the three-time world champions out of Germany 2006. What they realise now is that it is going to take some effort to defeat this Italy side, one which is unbeaten in over 20 games. There was simply no way that Lippi’s troops, full of character and fighting spirit, were going to go home as second round casualties for the second World Cup running. Of course, the main gripe from the men from Down Under comes in relation to the debatable penalty decision. It admittedly wasn’t clear cut, contentious, harsh, but these things happen in football as they do in cricket when it comes to LBW decisions. And you definitely don’t need Hawkeye technology to see Lucas Neill providing Fabio Grosso with a barrier in which to run into. A snick-o-meter may have perhaps been useful to assess whether any contact was actually made, but there was no doubt that Neill was guilty of a dropped catch just before tea. The disappointment in some of the post-match comments from the gutsy Australians was understandable, but others were nothing short of scandalous. Scott Chipperfield had the audacity to lament that referees seem to favour the footballing superpowers. "They look after the big nations," he said. "They want the big countries through to the semis and finals. It's always the way." As if the Materazzi red card doesn’t provide enough evidence to ridicule that claim, perhaps Chipperfield should ask his Coach, Guus Hiddink, about what happened between Italy and South Korea four years ago when a certain Byron Moreno was blowing the whistle. Now that was a game in which a team [Italy, that is] was robbed, yesterday’s result was simply fair dinkum.

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Hey Taggliatelle, no amount of waffle can make up for the fact that the whole world knows you cheated. Unfortunately the Latins seem to think it is natural to do so. That is their custom. I saw the Portugal goalie roll from his 6 yard box into his goals and through until he was touching the back of his net. Total 12 yards. And all because he collided with someone. He got up eventually and played on. I also saw the Dutch goalie (Van Der Saar) kicked in the head full on. He got up straight away to make sure the ball was safe and then remonstrated with the referee. Never ever did he fall down and roll around. HE was actually on the ground but jumped up. These are just 2 examples of different cultures. 1 is SOFT who cheat as often as they can, the other are real men who play to win abiding by the rules. We have 2 of each left in this World Cup. I hope sportsmanship triumphs.

Rooney was also fouled but refused to go down leading up to his red card dismissal.

lol so from that article we are to assume every team should go through to the next stage based on whether or not they deserved it more. Sounds similar to the pathetic uruguayans who believed they had a divine right to make the world cup.

Nice post Gallo...

Allan Border, I loved the "Tagliatelle" call. For those who dont know its a type of pasta. These two examples of different cultures that you used to back up your argument are known as "digging deep" at best. You forgot to add that none of these incidents were in the 94th minute of a round of 16 world cup knock out match with the team in question having only ten men left from a bad call facing another half hour of football. Being the situation as it was any player in any team would be looking for the slightest stuff up in the opposition to take advantage of and to say the aussies wouldnt do the same in that sittuation is a joke.

Come on lads, time to build that bridge. Most of Oz has gotten on with it. As Nutta in a previous post ("Loyal to the game") has said, the media has moved on; time for all to do so.

Alan Border, All 4 (now 3) nations left a divers.... Ballack of Germany is a nightmare, Henry of France is a nightmare - they both are better than Grosso at it - and you rightfully pointed out the Italian and Portugese history.... there is no sportsmanship left in the competition. I've now seen Germany this morning, and the Dutch against Portugal not give the ball back after a team has kicked it out for an injury.