regardless of who Italy played...they allowed 0 goals scored (besides an own goal and a penalty).

i don't care you who you play, when your defense and goalie are good enough to pull of something like that, you deserve the #1 spot. Italy beat a good Czech team, tied a good US team out of form, and beat a suprising Ghana team

they also beat a really good Aussie team that was better than a lot of people had given them credit for, they beat Ukraine...who may not have been the best in the world...but they shut down Sheva, completely. they beat Germany IN Germany...probably the hardest thing to do in the entire tournament, and then they went out and beat France.

I'm sorry, but that's a good enough resume for me to them be put in the #1 spot

at last some good news from FIFA. I was expacting this since 2000

they won the world cup, what more do you want? ya true they lost ot france after but there was many changes in the squad, new coach, players retiring, new players coming in, french players had over a month of fitness ahead of the italian players...

one thing i say about the US, is the big tournements and games dont phase the players and they really held their own.

[QUOTE]Very true.

And last time I checked football was a team sport. This isn't tennis (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[/quote]
Diver or not? Does it really matter? Italy won the WC. Everything else is worthless in the end. Maybe they were lucky against the Aussies, but against Ukraine, they were obviously the better team....And a squad that beats Germany (yes...they deserved to win (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) ) in their own country in a stadium with 70.000 germans supporting their side really deserves to win the WC![/QUOTE]

i must ur a good sport about losing and thats good. but when it cam to asutralia, italy was in full control until materazzi got that "red"(which we all know was garbage), so australia was lucky enough to play half of the game with a man up (and they barely created one chance). then grosso's penalty...but watch this replay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2PgG8j0gyQ

You can see neils left arm clips grossos left foot, and his right arm clips grosso right foot. you can see it's more a matter of grosso hitting neil, well that heppens because of neils reckless dive in front of him.

This post has been edited by bigmacmtl: Feb 14 2007, 11:18 PM

(IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) .. yes they were lucky.. i mean Australia were a very physical side.. and the game could've gone either way had it gone to extra-time,

but i do believe that it was the right call on the penalty.. it wasn't the honrable thing to do by Grosso, but he decided to run into Neil and make it a proffesional foul.

I think Australia would have knocked out Brasil; cuz they were so organized .. Plus the coach was one of the best (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/king.gif) I was really impressed

Football Italia

What could have Domenech done, take a penalty instead of Trezeguet!?? (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)


Well if it's FIFA it's definitely crap but when Coca-Cola gets in the way too, you know it's just... (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

ur telling me 1-0 (pen against portugal) and (1-0 against brazil) is better football? they struggled to get a single win in the groupe stage, in the end the only convincing performance was against spain ( and spain had they're chances of winning it) and the way the shut down a mediocre brazil. Italy beat the aficain team that performed the best at the world cup (ghana), a tricky game vs. australia, 3-0 against ukraine (ukraine had a couple of good chances but besides that italy owned this game start to finish and the scoreline could of been worse, plus they shut down sehva), and of course beat the hottest team at the world cup and the hosts germany which was a great accomplishment. like come on one of italy's easier games was against the czechs (who even tho disappointed, they were ranked 2nd overall and had a very good team). france had plenty of easy games as far as the world cup goes vs. korea, the swiss and togo and they almost fell at the group stage! dont tell me france was better, italy scored more and conceded less goals.

This post has been edited by bigmacmtl: Feb 15 2007, 05:39 AM

I just have to laugh at this. i've never liked and never will like materazzi. but the media and many italy haters were just waiting for something like this to happen. the next day i herd about 3 conflicting reports about what matrix said. why is that? because the media is BS and they wanted materazzi words to be racist because they just couldnt accept the fact that france lost. In the end were materazzis word so terrible? no they werent but they surely were mean. zidane was being a pompus **** like he usually does ( he was implying that they were gonna win and italy was gonna lose about the whole giveing his jersey to him after the game comment) and matrix being the **** he is he responded in kind. Now if according to you what materazzi said is so terrible, then that means u've never insulted someone? or their family because you hated them or they were pissing you off? ya i dont need an answer because we all know the answer, so plz dont make those commments because it sounds hypocritical. That said, zidane is known for violence so it doesnt take much to piss him off. Even before the game started me and my brother noticed zidane and matrix talking Shi!t to each other while coming out of the tunnel so i'm sure zidane isnt the innocent sugar princess everyone likes to think he is, especially when there so quick to juge matrix. In the end a truly classy player like maldini, or billy van basten, ya would not have gone on a lil "coupable". rant: "le vrai coupable est l'instigateur..blah blah blah", normally when someone has to make these sorta comments it's either.
A) their childish
B)Are insecure and have something to hide and need everyones support

You say matrix deserved it in the face, well then that means when zidane made that comment about italy losing then wouldnt that mean that metrazzi should have acted with violence?(maybe not a heabutt because it wasnt a big insult) because you are condoning violence. I would love to see what ur comment would be right now if that was the case. Zidane was a d!ck, materazzi returned the favor and was a d!ck, z!dane reponsded by a violent ****, case closed.


First off i dont how del piero comes into this cuz he barely played and he dint dive to give two free kicks that lead to goals like henry did. I dont see how getting up or lying after a dive changes anything because a dive is a dive.

11 (13) Ukraine (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

He should have put Trez in for Vieira (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
The Italian were half the way down in the 2nd half and he did nothing to win that game as usual he waited for something special from his players (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)



Well, I'm going to try to change your mind on ZZ nor talk about how some media turned all the story to whatever they wanted but there one or two things I have to say (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

First off all ZZ was never violent he just had a bad reactions some kind of "warm blood"!
Secondly, ZZ said that "le vrai coupable est l'instigateur" cause he wanted to justfy him self to half of the French who still think that France lost becase of him (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)
Thirdly, what's about that comment (about Italy losing) ZZ made, have you ever seen someone who's going to fight for some thing saying that he has no chance?!!
Finally, yes merdarazzi deserved the head-butt in his face (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

All in all, some of us have some pride when it comes to familly and react badly to some comments/insults involving them, as a professional ZZ should have never done what he did, but comsidering all the pressure he was under and the historical achievement (beeing the equal Pele) I somehow understand him and support his action, I would have done the same but hit somewhere else (IMG:http://cyrus.medialayer.net/~m1ke/milanfan.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I can agree with you Italians in one thing, you had the best coach by far.

Top 10
1 (2) Italy – 1,562 points
2 (1) Brazil – 1,540
3 (3) Argentina – 1,535
4 (4) France – 1,496
5 (5) Germany – 1,359
6 (6) England – 1,330
7 (7) Netherlands – 1,312
8 (9) Portugal – 1,262
9 (10) Czech Republic – 1,193
10 (12) Spain – 1,161

Finally

Justice has been made

This is the first time when this rank is correct especially the first 5 places
I never understand how England and Spain are still in top 10
probable it's the name that count