sorry, my tongue in cheek comment about fake diving technology has brought up a contentious issue, but its good to have varying opinions, its good for discussion.

Sorry but I can't un-italian your eyes. If you can't see him faking being tripped over then I can't help you.

"Australia were very rough the whole game" ... get your dress on Dom.

Footballer's tongue? Any good between two slices of bread?

I imagine the Juventus Captain's tongue is good between a lot of things.

Is that a weird accusation of corruption you're making there?

he knows mint, its just a disgrace that his Italian blood lines have disillusioned him from reality, and actually made him turn his back on his country of birth grosso himself has since admitted to 'exaggerating" his fall. that's enough, my blood pressure is rising thinking about it. also dom there are some nice dresses in supre on special now ...

The anglo football world has a huge inferiority complex when it comes to Italian football. Actually, most of Europe does too.


With 4 World Cups, a European Championship and 12 European Titles (14 times runners-up) at club level, Italy is the undisputed second best footballing nation after brazil, when you factor in these international and club achievements. England and Australia don't even come close. Take your inferiority complex to the rugby thread.

Also, are we forgetting that Materazzi was sent off unjustly in that same match? Don’t blame Grosso and the Italian people that you could not capitalize with a man advantage.

Your inability to actually counter any of his points makes me think that you guys are the ones with the blinders on.

I'm exaggerating to keep up with Mint, but in all honesty the Materazzi card was atrocious and it was a penalty. The way Australia and the media reacted was expected and possibly fair, but it was coming from a lot of sources that had absolutely no idea about football (most of the country to begin with).

I have some great memories of the 2006 World Cup and a lot of them are because of Australia. I suppose it was the worst scenario for me - Australia facing Italy, because while I loved the fairytale Australia making the quarter finals, I have followed Italy since I cared enough about the sport. Australia weren't in the picture for the first 15 years of my life so Italy was it. While I would've been happy for Australia to go through, Italy had a much more realistic chance of winning the competition and I can say it now because they did win the tournament, but I'm infinitely happier that Italy went through - nothing more then they deserved for dominating a conservative Australia one man down.

Just musing here. It's great that you guys, pink and dom, are such devoted fans of italian football. I do wonder sometimes though, whether people who are italian (or any other nationality) by heritage (in some case part italian, or part german or whatever) and not by birth feel the need to defend or display their loyalty to that nationality to the point that they become divorced from a sense of humour, thus falling into Mint's (in this case) elephant trap.
Just a thought.

Well this was an attempt at a Mint-esque post, but I guess I've got a long way to go.

You do. It was nowhere near absurd enough. It raised too many legitimate points.

You need to be more patriotic to Australia and right about everything. Unless it's about NSW>QLD or whatever, in which case he's just wrong.

Nick, stop ruining my fun! This is 100% serious posting here. I'm an exaggeration free zone these days that just tells it like it is. This is a serious debate between me, John and the dress wearing, cheating Italians and their number 1, down in the gutter fan, Krym.



What has this got to do with the fact an Italian player dived to win a match winning penalty?

Soccer is about the 4th most popular sport in Australia and has been a basket case in terms of organisation forever. Most of our best athletes play other sports. It's actually hilarious that we're already the best team in Asia and that Italy, a much larger country couldn't put us away more easily in their national sport. How would Italy go against us in AFL or cricket? The fact they resorted to cheating in order to win is a little embarrassing. Even if you think cheating is too strong a word, you couldn't possibly argue that it wasn't bad sportsmanship. You'd think they'd feel pretty bad about it. But the Italians don't see it that way. They applaud Grosso's "courageous" cheating.

On the other hand, when Trevor Chappell bowled underarm to ensure victory against New Zealand in a cricket match in 1981 (which wasn't even against the rules at the time, just against the spirit of the game), it caused so much embarrassment amongst Australians that people still shake their head about it in disgust today. We'd rather lose than win in such a way.



You seem to share Dom's attitude that cheating is justified in certain situations. For some odd reason one of those situations is when you're up against a weaker opposition that is frustrating you. Australia was obviously after a penalty shoot out in that match, where we had the greatest penalty saver of them all, Mark Schwarzer waiting to put the fear of god into the dress wearing Italians. With a one off penalty they had the luck to score but in an entire shootout they knew they would lose so they cheated. Clear as day.

There was no dive. There was some very suspect defending that would have probably been better managed by John Farnham and the Crocodile Hunter.

These sports are far too boring for Italians to get involved with them on a large scale.


Your trolling is usually better than this.