masterblaster72

Then why would you root for France? See this post. And I still maintain that my team did not dive in our game vs. your team. We played great football and earned our fourth star. Period. Regarding your comment about my fans, well, you obviously don't know many Italians. We live and breathe this sport. It's in our blood. I honestly don't know how you could say what you did about our fans, and I'll just chalk it up to a comment based on the narrow scope of your personal experiences. We are the champions. Good day to ya mate. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

That'll have to wait. The ghosts of 1998 and 2000 are dead. It's our turn now, and I'm on my way back downtown to celebrate. Great game dude, I mean it. You francese never make it easy for us. Take it easy monsieur. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Thanks ginge -- you seem to be the only sport here! Sounds like a bunch of sore losers anywhere else in this thread. MILLE MILLE MILLE GRAZIE AZZURRI!!!!! GRANDE GRANDE GRANDE GRANDISSSSSSSSSSIMA ITALIAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Way to go Deutschland...well-deserved win today. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Christ helped other people and lived selflessly. What action do you take in your life to help people and emulate Christ? I tell people they're going to hell if they don't believe. If they know what's good for them, they'll shape up and start believing. There's not much more to do. You sound like a true believer to me! Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Christ helped other people and lived selflessly. What action do you take in your life to help people and emulate Christ? Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Its really not terribly objective I'm affraid! I just remember watching the Mundial from a few years ago and being really really annoyed at the amount of diving the italians were doing... Much much more then the other teams at the time... I wont say that they dive and act more now then the average team does in today's play style (a shame really), but that initial feeling is what made me dislike the Italian team.

Mr. Namgrunt, no offense to ya. But it is spelled I-S-R-A-E-L. Israel. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Simple, but wrong. People are actually rooting for Italy, because if you're going to lose, it might as well have been to the World Champions. Tim Cahill (Aussie soccer player) has been instrumental in promoting this view. So Aussies are taking a 180 after their defeat a couple weeks back and going with Italy for the final. Right. After reading heaps and heaps of outwardly bigoted swill following that game in here and in other forums and articles, I find that really hard to believe. Even if Tim Cahill is a proponent of the idea. Nonetheless, I care not who you or your compatriots root for, and I'm still not sure why you think I would. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Public speaking Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

It sure does! Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

pepperoni and pizza... hmm...didn't you say you were going to boycott Italian products for a while there? Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Dude, do you really think she's going to read the books you send her? This is the same person telling us that satan goes around the world tempting people into doing bad things. She's going to equate your books with satan. She's not going to read them. Don't waste your postage. What I would recommend to windcatcher is that she do some kind of volunteer work to show the world that she's about action and not just empty mantras like "my lord and saviour jesus..." Action is more convincing than words that mean absolutely nothing to others. Okay, I have already sent hairyjuan my address, waiting for the material. Yes, I will read it, but I doubt it will change my mind. Masterblaster, it is amazing to me how people become so angry at Christians. I wish you knew me, but you don't and insist that I don't live out my faith--I'm just all talk. The message of the Cross DOES seem foolish; but when you have faith and accept Christ, God confirms His truth in many, many ways. I think it's good that you're giving other points of view a read. Personally, I wouldn't recommend something that poses such an extreme counterpoint to your faith. What I would recommend is reading the Dhammapadda. You'd find many similarities. I'm not angry toward Christians, but I do admit that I have a disdain for those who proselytize (I used to do so myself when I was a born-again Christian as a teenager). Not saying that you proselytize -- I just see that you're open about your faith and there's nothing wrong with that. I do think there's value in action and my main beef with most born-again types is that they simply talk about how they're saved while doing nothing to help others (as it is written that Jesus did), which to me amounts to a self-righteous superiority complex. I'm curious to know how you live out your faith -- please realize I'm asking that genuinely and not as a challenge to what you believe. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Oh stop whinning! Hey man, no one knows the agony of defeat more than a fan of the Azzurri. Just telling it like it is. You've got another reason to be optimistic now. One of our star defenders, Alessandro Nesta, is going to miss yet another match. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

The ones that wont be relagated to 4th division after the scandal! Seriously, I hope the Serie recups from it.. freaking shame a few bad apples ruined it for the game. One of the many reasons why we need this cup so bad. Football will suffer in Italy for years to come as a result of these scandals, and so will the national team. I don't expect us to be contenders in Euro 2008, and we'd be lucky to even qualify for WC 2010 since our best players will not be competing at the top level. If we're lucky, foreign teams will take them on loan for the time that Juve, Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina are in Serie B and C. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

That's a great idea -- if Italia wins I will send an Azzurri jersey to Lawrocket's home dropzone for him to pick up. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

I'm not sure why you would think I care who you root for. Being that you're from AU, I would expect you to root for France anyhow. You've got me there. I'm completely baffled as to how you came up with that. Australia has a huge Italian community and almost no connection with France. Wow. Simple -- Italy defeating AU in the round of 16. I'm aware of the large Italian community in AU -- I have third cousins in Perth, and I know the Italian community there (and worldwide for that matter) is rooting for our team. It's the others that I would expect to root for France. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

This I resent. I don't hate the Italians. I hate diving, and they've done a lot of it. "Everybody dives" is true, but it doesn't make it right. Please resist the temptation to call me a "hater" because I state my disdain for the tactic and those who use it most often. Fair enough then, retracted. But I will continue to disagree that my team has taken more dives than any other team in this tournament and previous ones. Actually, I'll apologize. I've been a bit of a dick in this thread. No apology needed -- if anything, I've been more pugnacious than you have in these discussions. It's good to see someone sharing a passion for the game Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

This I resent. I don't hate the Italians. I hate diving, and they've done a lot of it. "Everybody dives" is true, but it doesn't make it right. Please resist the temptation to call me a "hater" because I state my disdain for the tactic and those who use it most often. Fair enough then, retracted. But I will continue to disagree that my team has taken more dives than any other team in this tournament and previous ones. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

I will be at the game in Stuttgart going nuts in my Portugal jersey.. hopefully I wont get beaten up!

Dude, do you really think she's going to read the books you send her? This is the same person telling us that satan goes around the world tempting people into doing bad things. She's going to equate your books with satan. She's not going to read them. Don't waste your postage. What I would recommend to windcatcher is that she do some kind of volunteer work to show the world that she's about action and not just empty mantras like "my lord and saviour jesus..." Action is more convincing than words that mean absolutely nothing to others. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

Italy hasn't beaten France in 28 years...they beat us in 98 and 2000 (crushing defeats). Zidane is amazing, we currently don't have a player like that who will go down in history with Pele, Beckenbauer and Maradona. Your players play in the best leagues in Europe, ours only play in Serie A in Italy. On top of that, ours are younger and less experienced. And some of the top players on your team play or played in Serie A and know our strengths and weaknesses very well. 98 and especially 2000 still burn with fans of the Azzurri, and I'm sure those defeats still burn with our players. For that reason, I don't think this will be an easy match for either side. I am expecting a *very* defensive, low-risk game. As much as I love my team, I am not expecting them to win against yours. I honestly don't think we match up in experience and fall just short in talent. If we can pull it off, wonderful. But I just don't see it happening against a team that made Brazil look like fools for a full 90 minutes. That was, in my opinion, the most dominating and skilled performance I've seen in this cup. My jaw was hanging open at the end of that game. I'd like to be polite and wish your team luck, but honestly I don't want them to have any luck, nor do I think they need it. May the best team win Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

I'm not sure why you would think I care who you root for. Being that you're from AU, I would expect you to root for France anyhow. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

The amount of diving in this entire comp has been appalling. The players should be ashamed of themselves (especially the Portugese) and FIFA should use video evidence to issue post match citings and fines for habitual divers, especially for fake injuries intended to draw yellow cards and/ or stop an attacking move from the opposing team. That would show the fairies some respect for the game. That's a good idea -- they already do that with misconduct like punching/spitting etc., and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't do that for diving. To me, the most obvious dive of the tournament was Ronaldo's on Saturday vs. France, when Lilian Thuram got carded and Brazil was awarded a free kick just outside the box. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

I read your link. Here's what Cannavaro said, ""These stereotypes applied to us come from an old culture that has been overly abused." So, it sounds to me like he's saying, "We've been acting like this forever, and we've abused this culture." It sounds like he's admitting it to be true. And no, I hadn't even read that thingon Der Spiegel. Ia m capable of coming to an independent conclusion that they are making more dives than Greg Louganis. Actually, my commentary was that it was nice to see that, for once, the Italians weren't offsides. Or that the Italians didn't resort to diving in the box to get a PK. It was actual good fundamental soccer that got the goal. It's weird - once the overtime periods began, the Italians dominated. They weren't crashing to the ground (except one player who was apparently knocked silly by the ball while heading it out of the way. And no, I'm not accusing him of trying to get the ball sent off to preserve the scoreless streak) and were playing the sport like it should be played. Again, the lead role in "Madame Butterfly" is a performance. "Perform" they tried, but the "performance" was panned by the ref. I want to see athletes engaged in a great match. A streak that nobody questions is worthy of respect... If you don't think we earned that victory yesterday, then you simply have a problem with the Italian team. Whether you have a problem with Italians in general is something I couldn't give a rat's ass about. And I like how you conveniently ignored my point TWICE about Mr. Neill's elbow to Grosso's leg in the PK box vs. AU in our previous discussions and ignored my point about Ballack's very obvious dive yesterday. Seems you only have an eye for Italians doing dives. *Everybody dives.* Italians just get the most sh.t for it. And you seem to enjoy giving us sh.t for it. Good for you! I feel the hate...and I LOVE IT. Keep the stereotypes coming, hater....like I said, we don't wear three stars without merit. Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.