actually, come to think of it, i would have done the same thing

(if i had the balls)

No wonder it took me so long to click on this thread, it's about soccer.




P.S. In the .gif file, it looks like the recepient of the headbutt is taking a flop worthy of Ric Flair.

Thought he had. And the whole thing about him being one of the more sportsmanlike players was what was confusing me since this doesn't at all match that.

And yeah, I was going to say as well that Materrazzi definitely made the most of it. Anyone would have thought he was some puny little dude rather than a 2 metre football player. But then, he is Italian...




<---- Clearly still has issues with stereotype-confirming Italian diving

Yet, the Super Bowl Trophy is in Art Rooney's office and the World Cup resides in Rome. Pussy Nigga, you don't know me.

It is a pretty cool way to attack someone, though. I mean, who headbutts someone in the chest?

Zinedine ZiRAM

OK, I have to admit I thought something similar. After all the diving and flopping, some of it acted with great skill and craft, the Italian just folded and hit the ground in an authentic, and strangely satisfying way. Boom... he's down. Of course Zidane needed to be sent off... and the only possible reason justifying such crass behavior (which is what I assume is true and is what I have seen on the blogs) is that the Italian made some ethnic slur against arabs. Also compared to Figo's paltry little nod... Zidane, the genious of the headbutt.

Yeah, from what I've seen some of those soccer players have taken lessons at The Jim Carrey School of Overacting.

I think Zidane deserved the Red card too, but how did the officials see it. No one running a camera did initially and FIFA is already denying they used replay to catch it, but somehow I don't buy it. It sucks that the game went to Penalty Kicks, that is the worst thing that could have happened for american viewers. It is exciting to alot of Soccer fans, but most want a clear-cut winner based on the actual game.
I'm sure most americans would hate it more if France won via Penalty Kicks than the Italians, so maybe that helps a bit.
I've said it before, they need to offer Zidane a major deal to come out of retirement and play in the US. They should also talk Oliver Kahn into coming over since he might retire as well. We need some filthy rich people to take over all the major MLS teams and have them throw money at the International Stars like Steinbrenner does for the Yankees. We also need to buy more U-17 and U-21 players that don't have an International cap yet and build up a national team of mostly foreigners.

that Italian douche deserved it.

Trying to throw money at stars isn't going to work because the top players can already earn fortunes in Europe and compete at a much higher domestic level with the Champions League as added incentive.

As for building a team of young foreigners well that's not going to work either because a) players that excel at youth level often don't make it at the top grade and it's very difficult to identify young players who are going to go on to the next level, and b) most players aren't going to give up the chance to play for Italy or Brazil in exchange for US caps.

What the US has to do is concentrate on producing home-grown talent and then exporting it to the top European leagues like Scandanavian and Eastern European nations have done. Just look at Denmark's international achievements over the last 25 years or so with a population of only 5 million and it didn't even have a professional domestic league until recently. It's actually ironic that since the Danes set up a professional league in their country the national team has dipped and they didn't qualify for this World Cup.

zidane is honourable, with british spelling even.

the man should be knighted and all italians should go back to sicily and cry to their mothers about losing world war II.

va fa napoli fuckers

I thought the headbutt was awesome.

yeah all that flopping/overacting was pretty annoying

Itlalia! Finally got some just desserts in PKs... they can forget about Baggio's misfire from 1994.

But it also needs to increase the popularity of soccer here as well and get the people to give a damn about at the sport. They need to broadcast some of the top-tier league games here in the U.S.

And, since Fox Soccer Channel is now part of a pay sports package... that might not happen. The shitty performance they gave us is going to set the movement back. But, now that Captain Pussy Reyna retired, and rumors of Klinsmann coming over to coach... we'll soon see some exciting football.

why? isn't it alright if it just doesn't take off in the US? i'm pretty sure the small faction of fans has been trying to popularize it here for years, but i don't think it's ever going to be a major sport here. it's not like something's wrong with us as a whole for not loving it.

I don't think broadcasting the EPL, Bundesleague or anything from Brazil, Mexico, Italy France or Spain would really help much for popularizing the sport, but I also don't see why ESPN and ESPN2 don't run live or tape delayed matches instead of rerunning Poker, World's Strongest man, Paintball or that Viking show from Japan. You can't tell me that fewer people would turn in to watch Chelsea take on Man U. than watch Women's softball on ESPN2.
I'd personally love to watch a Primetime telecast of the EPL, Bundesleague or UEFA games, especially when those teams tour the United States or play the MLS all-stars like Chelsea is going to.

word.

It's ironic that a thespian won it for THIS Italian American.
But I'll take it -

Your point? I don't think the better team one either match.....i was rooting for Italia but they were severely outplayed from the second half on. I thought the seahawks got screwed by the refs and were better that day than the Steelers...the better team doesn't always win.

My point, Dr. Doltenstein, is that WINNING is everything. Losers always whine about doing their best, winners go home and fuck the prom queen.