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.
by Jefsaid 12 years ago
I have been trying to analyse this topsy-turvy season in an attempt to establish whether teams have generally improved or if the top teams in particular are weaker. Certainly, financial constraints have limited the ability of most clubs to tempt others to sell their very best players and also...
by Pete 10 years ago
What is the best alternative to a penalty shootout to decide a football match?Having just watched England lose (again) on penalties, I find myself once again frustrated. Being a player and a supporter, I have never agreed with any football match being decided on penalties. I understand...
by AfricaResource 11 years ago
Luis Suarez refused to shake the hand of Patrice Evra after racially abusing him! Do you agree or disagree with his behavior yesterday?
by jobister 12 years ago
I am for 18 game season because as a fan of the game I would love to see more meaningful games, but the NFL has to agree with some of the demands made by the players. What are your thoughts?
by kirstenblog 11 years ago
There is a forum topic that is current right now about a woman who committed a terrible crime against another human being. The topic discusses the punishment/rehabilitation and what should be done in these cases.It got me thinking about my reactions to these horrific crimes that come into the news....
by Carmen Beth 7 years ago
France or Italy: which do you prefer to stay in?Each has its own unique charm and beauty- food, places, locals, and almost everything in connection to life's simple pleasures and luxuries.
Copyright © 2023 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2023 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |