Posts by giovanni tiso
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But Italy is playing to its potential. That's the problem.
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I'd like to post the following, pinched from writer Pip Adam's twitter account:
Er... Pip is a dear friend and I'm sure she wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarism, so let's say right away it's a rather older joke - a known associate of this fine blog was making it about the Socceroos just last week.
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I'm all right! Honest! Ironically I was in fact very keen to spend the day talking up the All Whites with you all. Less so to take part in a collaborative Stephen Jones column about those cheating Italians - but you should all feel free.
That said
"Ow, mamma, a New Zealander breathed on me, ow, ow"
Rofflenui.
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No, but I find the needling a little boring and sad, so ciao to all.
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especially those gained for an Oscar winning performance
Smith committed a foul, you know. It may be one of those fouls that often gets overlooked, but it was a foul nonetheless. De Rossi made sure the ref saw it. It's exactly what Smeltz would have done if it had happened at the other end of the park. Although frankly this is getting quite boring - can we go back to praising the All Whites for a historic performance, instead of whining?
Same goes for the complaints about bloody ball, to be honest. Brazil doesn't seem to have too much trouble blasting it into the net I've noticed.
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The Aussies will get over the Grosso penalty some day, but there's quite a lot of fun to be squeezed out of them until they do.
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'ALL WHITES TAILS UP FTW'
Italy won Euro 68 like that. I shit you not. (Well, it won the semifinal on a coin toss, rather. But still)
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I wonder how rugby rates in Italy compared to football in NZ.
It's quite popular in some parts of the country, almost completely uknown in others. It's not played by kids except in those few areas, unlike soccer over here. On the other hand, Italian rugby fans don't seem to have any major chip on the shoulder about the evils of soccer, so that's a notable difference.
Actually, scratch that, some of the players do, come to think of it.
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I haven't come across any complaints, no. The consensus seems to be that while Smeltz was offside it would have been a tough to call to make, and that De Rossi was fouled but milked it for all it was worth.
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And call me crazy, but if we get another referee like last night, and Fallon continues to lead with his elbows again, we'll have a blunted strike force - I wasn't suggesting Herbert would "rest" Fallon, more like not risk him collecting another yellow if the group stage yellows aren't wiped before the knockout round.
And if he plays like he did today in the round of sixteen, NZ risks being down one man. He needs to play and watch the elbows - there's no reason why one of your strikers should find himself needing to be booked to get the team out of trouble, so he should play. And assert himself physically, but at the same time be smart about it.
I liked that the ref didn't send him off today and gave him a final warning instead. That was the right thing to do.