What is the reason behind defending champion Italy's fall in first round itself of World Cup Football ?
European teams are generally not doing as well in the World Cup as the non-European teams. South American and Asian teams are looking much better - possibly to do with altitude?
England are the exception of course. Once we beat Germany on Sunday, there will be no stopping us!
"European teams are generally not doing as well in the World Cup as the non-European teams."
Italy won the World Cup 4 times, only Brazil done better than that...Not to forget Germany has won the WC 3 times.... how is that not good?????
England as an execption????? you must be having a laugh, or never watched England actually playing football!
The manager simply didn't pick the right players.
I personally think that it still wouldn't have changed much, though.
they clearly need a complete overhaul....they already have a new manager and plenty of promising young talent, so let`s wait and see....I`m sure they will bounce back. Forza Azurri
They were simply not good enough and they left it until the last 10 minutes of their tournament to finally show some passion and desire. The players were arrogant in that they felt it would be below them to work hard to beat New Zealand. When they finally turned up, they were wonderful, a ten minute spell to savour and now it's just a shame that they are out. Hopefully it will be a valuable lesson in humility.
They are an old team (in terms of average age), i think the manager could've and should've picked some younger fresh talent.
I respect all your opinions. But I think the style change of Italy is the reason for failure.They played total football and forgot football totally!!
Hear it from a Kiwi!
Italy expected to gain it's points from NZ and do it without any effort. Factually, they underestimated the kiwis and overestimated their own abilities. Good Job!
They cheated against NZ in diving for a penalty which should not have been awarded... but showed how desperate they were to get a point from NZ.
Loosing their last game cost NZ the next round, even though we were unbeaten in 3 games..
Italy like France I believe should not have bothered even entering the tourny. They shamed themselves in their efforts and their arogance.
That penalty kick was deserved, albeit lucky. His jersey was clearly grabbed. You could tell Italy was a stronger team just by the amount of corner kicks NZ gave to them, but the Kiwi defense was just crazy, Paston did great. It was a good game, even though I was cheering for Italy. The Slovakia game was much more painful.
Hahaha... they had each been jersey holding but NOT at the moment the Italian Striker did a dying swan act! In other words: it was Not the reason he dived!
NZ achieved what they planned to. The objective was not to allow goals against and I think they showed the world how brilliant (not crazy) they were at that.
We have only 23 professional players in all of NZ - most of them were not available. Italy has 3500 to choose from... And they Had to take a dive to score a point against us!
The Italian coach said before the game... "We would be shamed to loose against NZ..We will not loose.. If NZ won.. it would be like the Italian Rugby team beating the All Blacks!"
Hahaha and from the sideline...
"Taka the dive.. taka the Dive.. Don'ta loosa da game!!"
I think the Kiwis have proved far more than just a single point against Italy! We as a people always punch above our weight.
We leave the comp without loosing a game...
And I guess people worldwide... now know our names!
Wasn't 12 - 1 great odds for a draw with Italy?
A shirt grab doesn't really advocate for a penalty. It's more a lack of respect for the adversary, but it doesn't really impede people from scoring.
The Italian was in no position to score anyway, so I don't see why it should have been a penalty at all.
My question is not at all about penalty.It is Italy's failure to be discussed.
If you look at the 'big' European teams, they have struggled throughout the group stages. This is because i think they have become complacent and assume they will beat so called lesser teams like NZ without effort.
It is for that reason that i cannot see a winner from anywhere but South America - i think one of the following will win:
Brazil
Argentina
Paraguay
Chile
Italy coach Marcelo Lippi had admitted that it was his failure. He tried different tricks in all the three matches. So it was not consistent.
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