The Official 2006 FIFA World Cup thread. (2 Viewers)

[sly fly]

Italy defender Marco Materazzi admitted on Tuesday he insulted Zinédine Zidane because he had been "very arrogant", according to La Gazetta dello Sport. The incident has been the subject of all sorts of speculation, and Materazzi is the first involved to give his version of the story.

http://www.eurosport.com/football/worldcup/2006/sport_sto923758.shtml

Materazzi is a pathetic cheat with no dignity and I don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth. He doesn't know what a terrorist is? lol u have got to be kidding me

Here are the life and times of Materazzi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXJvnYBpFpY

 

[bazookajoe]

Materazzi has not elaborated on what he did say, but one report suggested he responded with: `I'd rather take the shirt off your wife'.

Best. Ever.

 

[nwatts]

Politik shut up. Man you're embarrasing yourself.

On the Materazzi comments: I can now see why Zidane exploded, but that doesn't take away from his disgusting behaviour.

 

[theone123]

Final ladder for the BoS Fantasy World Cup:

1 Paragon's Back-ups. P M 30 342
2 Copious's Hammers Howie T 36 338
3 waf Justin Simon 27 296
4 Ragingsheep FC Y H 24 291
5 MQ Pride Jimmy Lo 21 284
6 sunjet united justen r 27 281
7 azzurri Vince P 27 279
8 Xen XI Night Elf Druid 23 274
9 Dream Team XI matt #1 28 263
10 Retards John Huang 7 255
11 Arsenal FC andrew russell 25 239
12 blackmagic8716 Mr Mr 21 232
13 World XI Johnny Heitinga 29 216
14 Benny's Reds Ben Yan 16 210
15 RUB!X Uber XI M B 7 195
16 boo ben g 6 190
17 Fk Rabotnicki a g 4 183
18 DRAGONZ LAIR Rob P 3 179
19 soccerwhos wang fang 10 139

I forgot to change my players a few times, but 9th is ok. Congratulations Paragon! You only had 3 teams in the comp and somehow still managed to win with one of them.

matt, haha i feel sorry for ronaldo, a enemy of state in england, then again isnt he defecting to real madrid

 

[- L1n -]

Blah, blah, blah, they won it by defending everything. OH WAIT, thats what they always do!

Yeh and by doing that they are World Champions agian for the 4th time, How many have Argentina won by playing attacking football? last time i checked 2, 4 > 2.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Materazzi is a pathetic cheat with no dignity and I don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth. He doesn't know what a terrorist is? lol u have got to be kidding me

Here are the life and times of Materazzi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXJvnYBpFpY

More like I dont' believe any of the half a dozen "lip readers" interpretations of what he said that I've read from various media sources.

 

[sly fly]

More like I dont' believe any of the half a dozen "lip readers" interpretations of what he said that I've read from various media sources.

Yeah well we can't be sure yet but once Zidane reveals what Matarazzi said to him, the lip readers can either confirm it or say he's lying. When they confirm it, and I'm sure they will, Matarazzi's head will be down in shame and I really hope he's never allowed to play football again. Although, Materazzi did play a smart move by not saying what exactly he said to Zidane and merely brushing it off as common football insults.

As I've said before, I do think that the insult was something to do with either his race/religion or his family (mother in particular), so I don't think the lip readers were too far off.

 

[matt#1]

matt, haha i feel sorry for ronaldo, a enemy of state in england, then again isnt he defecting to real madrid

I feel sorry for Ronaldo too . Sure, his behaviour in contributing to Rooney getting sent off was wrong...but he dosen't deserve what he is copping at the moment. England need a scapegoat for yet another unsuccessful World Cup campaign. Ronaldo is the scapegoat this time around.

As for the part about defecting to Madrid...that is looking likely at this stage, but I still have some hope that he might stay.

 

[stazi]

seriously though, i dont care what he said. they're words. zidane is used to that on a football field, and should not have retaliated.

 

[acmilan]

lol @ never playing again for what he said. If every player who sledged about someones mother/wife/family/race/religion/whatever was never allowed to play again im sure there wouldnt be much sportsmen left over. Dont worry, im sure Zidane can dish it out as well as he can take it.

 

[sly fly]

seriously though, i dont care what he said. they're words. zidane is used to that on a football field, and should not have retaliated.

true......it doesn't excuse Zidane's behaviour but it makes it understandable.......but anyway, anyone who is not certain that they would not react if a person called their dying mother a terrorist whore has no right to condemn Zidane

 

[stazi]

I wouldn't do anything about it, especially in a professional setting. I wish zidane played bball in the nba, the matches have so much verbal abuse it's crazy.

EDIT: or baseketball

 

[sly fly]

I wouldn't do anything about it, especially in a professional setting. I wish zidane played bball in the nba, the matches have so much verbal abuse it's crazy.

EDIT: or baseketball

hats off to you then

 

[DRAGONZ]

I think it's just a huge shame that the World Cup has just finished, but all anyone will talk about for the next year is not that Italy won or that Brazil were disappointing or that Australia surprised everyone with their tenacity .. but rather five seconds of madness from one player.

Imagine if there was no sledging in cricket. I would have a decent shot at making the Australian team.

Sledging is a part of sport .. which is why I find this so incredibly bemusing. Zidane would have copped all kinds of insults in his glorious career .. but this particular one drove him over the edge in a match that he knew meant so much to him, his country, and the world.

He doesn't deserve to be defended by people for his actions, which were incredibly stupid. However, Materazzi doesn't deserve to be defended by people claiming, "Sledging happens all the time, it's not his fault". FIFA Fair Play? Hahahahahahaha. Let me laugh some more. Hahahahahaha.

In the end, the most consistently good side won the tournament. Which is the way it should be, in the end. Italy overcame their nemesis, that being penalties. Congratulations to them.

Fabio Grosso must be on top of the world .. he won two knockout matches for his country and scored the World Cup winning penalty.

Overall, two questions should be asked of the whole tournament:

1. Were Italy the best team of the 206 who attempted to win the 2006 World Cup? No.

2. Were Italy the team who most deserved to win the 2006 World Cup? Yes.

 

[...]

wise words from Dragonz...

 

[DRAGONZ]

Thanks, mate

 

[nwatts]

1. Were Italy the best team of the 206 who attempted to win the 2006 World Cup? No.

2. Were Italy the team who most deserved to win the 2006 World Cup? Yes.

I liked the rest of your post, but am confused with these- doesn't the fact that italy won the competition indicate they're the best team? And in terms of whether or not they were the most deserving, it's a bit of an unanswerable question. I'd almost argue germany were the most deserving, but they couldn't pull through when it counted, so in effect they're not.

Expand on what you feel deserving means.

 

[DRAGONZ]

I liked the rest of your post, but am confused with these- doesn't the fact that italy won the competition indicate they're the best team? And in terms of whether or not they were the most deserving, it's a bit of an unanswerable question. I'd almost argue germany were the most deserving, but they couldn't pull through when it counted, so in effect they're not.

Expand on what you feel deserving means.

To explain them, I'll give you two examples. The second is probably more obvious than the first, but at least the first example is football.

In the A-League last season, Adelaide United were definitely the best team. I'm a big Sydney FC fan, but I will freely admit that over the course of the season, they were the best team. When it came to the Finals series, though, they crashed out and Sydney took the title. Our ability to hold firm in the crunch matches of the Finals made us the most deserving team, but not the best over the season. To parallel this to the World Cup, I would say that Germany or Argentina were probably the best teams in the tournament (who would have expected Germany before the Finals started?!). However, Argentina obviously lost on penalties to Germany. And then when Italy played Germany, the Germans just got too defensive in extra time. Italy played the more attacking football, and deservedly got the winning goal(s).

The second example is last season's NRL season. Parramatta Eels were the best team throughout the season, but they crashed out in the Preliminary Final. Wests Tigers played well during the Finals, and were the deserved winners in that context. However, they weren't the best team during the season, as both Parramatta and St George Illawarra (as well as Brisbane for the majority of the season) played better than them over the course of the season.

So yeah .. basically, Italy deserved it the most because they didn't play one "poor" game all tournament. They might have been unattractive for quite a few matches, but that's Italy's style. They kept providing and providing results. When the semi-final was at crunch-time, it was Italy who deservedly scored the winning goal. When Italy looked like they would exit at the hands of Australia in the Round of 16, they held us out with only 10 men. Obviously the winning play is contentious, but nobody can blame the Italians for what transpired.


Hope that explains it somewhat.

 

[nwatts]

Yeah I can see what you mean now. I just have issues with labelling one team the "best" when at times they failed to perform, as with Germany/Adelaide United examples. I would argue that because of Italy's amazing defensive play that won them the final, they are now recognised as the best team in the world. Whereas because of a slight error in tactics, Germany bowed out from playing for the cup, making them the most deserving for consistent play.

 

[taki999]

^ someone which a brain...