I despise Italian football. They're whiny, over-theatrical, lucky, and just play extremely unentertaining games. Their win in 2006 was based on an amazing performance from Gianluigi Buffon and a lot of practice taking penalty kicks. However, redemption for my little personal world came today when New Zealand tied the former World Champions in what is already being called one of the greatest upsets in football history.
It started when Martin Tyler and Ally Mccost(the best commentating team in the WC this year) were saying early on that New Zealand's best chance of getting a result in this match was from set pieces. Sure enough, four minutes later, and with a little bit of luck, Winston Reed (who also scored the equalizer in the 93rd minute to produce New Zealand's first ever point in the WC five days ago against Slovakia) tapped in a wonderfully worked ball in from a set piece.
The World Champions were now down a goal against the second lowest ranked team in the entire tournament, a team that were given a 1 in 5,000 chance of winning the WC.
But THEN, about 20 minutes later, Daniele De Rossi, one of the most shameless players in World football, took a dive in the box after Kiwi defender Johnny Smith lightly grabbed his shirt. A penalty kick from Iaquinta and an extremely awkward celebration involving De Rossi putting his fists up to Iaquinta's face and resting his mouth on them and the game would be level.
From here, Italian players tried every trick in the book, they practically cried if a New Zealander touched them.
New Zealand's back line, particularly Ryan Nelson, defended as if their lives depended on it, and well deserved the result.
This to me was the penultimate example of why Italy is the most unimpressive, shameless, and frankly dirty teams amongst the big European sides.
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