quote:

Originally posted by evil_bastard When Italian sides play attacking teams they have a tendancy to slow the game to a painful pace and frustrate the opposition by theatrical diving persistently. You may have guessed, I don't have a great deal of respect for Italian sides. Newcastle are well known as an attacking and entertaining team, in 61 games last season we didn't have a single 0-0 game, we were the first Champions League side ever to come back after losing half of their group games. The contrast with Italian sides was a painful one. Both Inter Milan and Juventus immediately slowed the game to a crawl, and we struggled. We did beat Juventus but were thoroughly cheated against Inter. With the exception of the Everton game at Goodison Park, Newcastle/Inter at the San Siro was the most disgusting game I saw anywhere last season. Juventus played good games though, they played proper football on the pitch, were humble in victory and gracious in defeat. They admired our style of play and promised to help us qualify and I can say that they beat us fair and sqaure. Inter Milan on the other hand were nothing short of disgraceful. The Inter/AC Milan derby in the Champions League was a diving extravaganza.

to be blatently honest you couldn't claim italians are the worst for diving then, because the majority of players in both teams were not italian.

what i will say tho is the two milan teams are fuckin gash in the style they play.

but if you had ever cared to watch chievo then you would see not all italian teams are like this.

anyhow, you must remember football is made up of attaking and defending and you can't ignore the fact that the italian team has had the greatest defence in the history of the game. it may not be pretty but it's brought success.

Regardless of the players' nationality, Italian sides like Inter and AC have a proud of history of diving which harms the credibility of Serie A. Some sides are a lot worse than others and I do admire sides like Juventus, although it is a few years since I followed Serie A closely.

I don't find Italian defensiveness particularly entertaining, but I will give them due credit for their ability, they are probably the best in the world. But as I said earlier, I would have a lot more admiration for Italy and the Italian league if there was less play-acting. Appealing for a penalty is one thing but Inter and AC Milan went a lot further than that.

I'm not sure who are the worst at diving, it's probably not the Italians but you must admit they are pretty bad (or should that be 'good') at it.

i hope SS LAZIO will do great this year ( no money problem atm ) .... if they will not give out stam and fiore ....

btw.... i agreed when u say " italian football team r too much defensive..... defensive = less goal offensive = goals .....

..... but u see juventus - real 3-1 ( juventus = defensive team - real offensive team )

but i saw a terrible champions league final match!!


btw.... i like italian soccer .... i love SS LAZIO..... i hate AS ROMA......

cheers!!!

Italians have the best defence in the world hands down

the only problem is the officiating towards their team, everyones out to get them all the time, they are one of the most hated teams (unless you are Italian such as myself, you hate them)

same with the leafs in the NHL, they are either your favorite team in the league (for me they are ) or they are your worst

and temas like this are alwyas subjected to poor officiating, they have to play extra hard to win the game

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I'm so cool

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Cool and temas like this are alwyas subjected to poor officiating, they have to play extra hard to win the game

Italian sides in the Champions League seemd very cosy with the officials, actually.

I agree that the Italian national side gets some stick but definitely not more than nations like England. They are threatening to ban us from Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006 purely for events off the pitch - you can't get more unpopular than that! If Italians have a bad reputation among match officials it's because they earned it. Just like the south Americans and the Spaniards diving and outright cheating is an integral part of Italian football.

shut up you nonce.

enuff with england and them getting chucked from euro 04. thats pure scare mongering on uefas part, wheras the refereeing in italys world cup matches was a disgrace and very much real. they were cheated out of 4 perfectly legitimate goals.

Nobody seems to take positives out of the italians game, everybody has a pop at them no matter if they win or lose, it's no wonder they are negative.

I listen to that big fuckin wank ron atkinson when comentating on the champions league games. he talks like the italians are the scum of the earth, they can never do anything quite good enuff for him, wheras if it's spanish, german or english teams then the sun just seems to shine out their arses doesn't it

at the end of the day the italians are no worse than the likes of michael owen who seems to have an inability to stay on his feet when in the oppositions 18 yard box. take the argentina game for example.

italy are one of the greatest football nations the world has had along with germany and argentina, and brazil out front of course, so why doesn't everybody stop knocking them and give credit where credit is due.

*end rant*

I do give them credit where it's due, as well as criticism.

Strikers all over the world will try for a penalty in the 18 yd box. Italians go much further and have earned a reputation for it. Why can't you take the criticisms with the complements? The Italians had some harsh decisions against them, so did Turkey and others, it's happened to us all.

It might be scaremongering but UEFA are not afraid to take extreme action against the English, as we saw in the 80s and in 2000 when they completely destroyed our bid to host WC 2006. They've never done anything like that to anyone else, we are by far the most punished nation in world football while the Italians are worse offenders on and off the pitch.

but you don't give credit where credit is due. not once have you mentioned that they have won three world cups or that they have graced us with the best defenders in the world, claudio gentili, paulo maldini, nesta and for that matter, players all over the field, buffon, zoff, zola, baggio, guiseppe meazza, rossi, riva, schilache, del piero(until injuries)....... the list goes on.

neither does anybody.

instead you have just went on and on about the fact they are cheaters when in fact the likes of rivaldo, klinsman, beckham, owen, voller, diouf are far worse than any italians have ever been.

I don't deny for one minute that italians have the tendency to know every balde of grass in serie A personally, but you still have to give them more credit for what they have acheived in world terms.

And as for crowd trouble. Fans of the azzuri do not go on riots every time their country play, it's purely within their club games that the fighting happens. this is because they are proud of their country, whereas unfortunately, some elements of the english support couldn't give a dam about their country. It's quite ironic that they think they are fighting for england when in fact they are doing completely opposite.

and to be honest it's about time your fa did somthing series about it cos it could be the downfall of the best england team since '66.

I haven't mentioned Italian's successes because there's no need, the same reason why I haven't gone on about how great Brazil's record is. Everyone ranks Italy highly, only Brazil has won more world cups.

I think the FA have done everything they can. England has a fantastic domestic record now, our stadia don't have big fences penning all our fans away anymore, in most of Europe this is still the case. We haven't had a full on riot in a ground for a long time, elsewhere in Europe this still goes on. They've also done a lot to stamp out racism and take a lot of the shit handed by UEFA. The FA can't do much about England fans abroad except withhold tickets to the games, and that's what they've done with the Turkey and Macedonia games. If England fans still go to Istanbul without tickets how is that the FA's fault?