Italy and Germany Rivalry Heats Up Off the Pitch

July 4th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

Yesterday, we showed you how the German and Italian media have been slugging it out over their respective roles in Torsten Frings being suspended for today’s semifinal match. The rivalry between the two countries doesn’t stop there, however. A Berlin newspaper is doing its best to upset Italians living in the German capital.

The Tageszeitung newspaper printed the telephone numbers of pizza shops around Germany and urged its readers to call them right at kickoff.

The paper printed a picture of pizza chefs serenading guests with a guitar above the caption: “The Italian dough-kneaders are singing now but they’ll have to bake thousands of pizzas instead of watching football tonight.”

Quite clever, but I would imagine that the pizzerias might just take their phones off the hook before kickoff or at the very least make some pizzas with some less than appetizing ingredients for the German fans.

Meanwhile, Italy is demanding that Germany repatriate the body of Bruno the black bear. Bruno was quite the story here last week. The wayward bear from the Austrian and Italian alps ran amok in Bavaria and was subsequently shot dead by a hunter.

The Germans have been planning to stuff Bruno and put him in a museum. Italy was none too pleased about this and wants Bruno back, but probably would be willing to let Germany keep the dead animal in exchange for the World Cup trophy.

For those looking to get out a little aggression while you wait for kickoff, you can duke it out as Germany against Italy in the mascot smackdown game.

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Abe

This is stupid! this is just a sport…if the german media need to go that far for a sport, they just proved how idiotic they are…
http://germany.worldcupblog.org Harvey

Abe – I couldn’t agree more. As Gattuso said, “we’ve got to remember it’s just a game of soccer.”
John Lierman

It’s isn’t stupid, just very clever… it shows the passion soccer elicits…something you wouldn’t understand
Pete Best’s love child

Ah yes, the imbroglio and schadenfreude brought out by the semi finals!

I would love to see this happen between the Boston Chronicle and the New York Daily News come the “World” Series,…
William

As the legendary Scottish manager of Liverpool FC once said: “Some people believe that football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude, it is much, much more important than that!”
Massimo

You guys are so stupid

You must be from the States.

Haven’t you figured out how this is not only a game.

the game part of it is only 50%

the other 50% is what makes this sport the best in the world and why we love it so much.

Italy will win, how on earth can a team like Germany think they have a chance. The got nobody. Ballack ad Klose maybe. Ballboy isn’t that good though and Klose is really predictable.

How are they gonna stop the Italian offense that is just waking up?

The only advantage is the ref, but how can the ref not allow some of the 10 goals we are gonna score.

That’s right

P.S. Brazil sucks donkey balls
http://zainal.wordpress.com/ MooDy

ANYone got Any Idea About Italy’s Lineup 4 todays match ?
Massimo

Yeah,

Buffon

Zambrotta – Cannavaro – Materazzi – Grosso

Perrotta – Gattuso – Pirlo – Camoranesi

Totti

Toni
Dave Hamilton

Leave it to an Italian to badmouth the USA here. Get a clue, pal, and wank your black bears. Your misfits and thugs couldn’t even handle nine Americans on the pitch.

Happy INDEPENDENCE Day, sucker, and GO GERMANY!!!!
kaiserslautern’s girl

To Massimo:

DO yeh think that Italy possibly has a chance?!?!?! WHy did the italian media go ranting bout that punch from TORSTEN FRINGS? CAZ THEY’R SCARED THAT GERMANY GONNA WIN. You Italians just got them pumped up and now they are gonna make y’all sorry. HAHHAHAA
kaiserslautern’s girl

by the way, what kind of player scores on his own team??? remember zaccardo??? is that the kinda players Italia boasts about???? Yo Germany beat Argentina, you can’t get better than that>
Massimo

The only way Germany will score is if they go through Materazzi, I don’t like him, he sucks
Aqvamare

http://worldcup.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=311

show at this article, you will see what it means when i say the complet county looks football, 89% of all televisions in germany look the game argentinia against germany, the rest was on the places were great video screens make it possible to look football with thousand of other fans.

today ,damilercrysler for example, give there worker free, that they can look the semi final.
Massimo

The media on soccer in italy is so intense. Sky has 24 hour coverage of the world cup, everything and I mean everything from any match is made know through them. So obviously they were gonna catch a punch.

the Italian national team though has never pushed for a disciplinary action, they don’t care. Frings or no Frings Germany is always weaker than Italy.

Just wanted to clear that up
http://zainal.wordpress.com/ MooDy

at least Zaccardo can go back home and say ( HEY : I scored A goal! ) .

Forza Azzurri :)
Natalia

Look here , host teams are always under pressure to win. Even England won the cup once when they hosted FIFA. That was in like 1966.
http://zainal.wordpress.com/ MooDy

Many posters’s location coming From Bahrain … Am i the only Bahrainian guy arround ?

:)
Michael

Even if we loose to Italy today, in some way we already won: We lived up to the motto of the World Cup … “Time to make friends”.

I thought i’d never see the day English fans are actually supporting the Germans and the German “Mannschaft”, but if you look at various newspaper sites and forums all around the world (esp. English/African/Australian), you’ll see people praising us for our friendliness, organization and party-atomsphere.

Whoever wins today doesn’t matter to me (much /smirk) anymore. We already accomplished more than anyone could hope for before the World Cup (football and friendship-wise), so despite of what some obscure local newspaper might be suggesting, i’ll just enjoy this evening, eating a Italian Pizza and drinking German beer ^^
Kaiserslautern’s girl

why the hell don’t my flag show up?!?!??!

by the way, this is posted from Canada>
JasonM

I also feel it’s clever. Just an innocent way to had some good old fashion rivalry to the game. Who knows, maybe the Italians will have some record breaking pizza sales figures in Germany!!!
JasonM

Oh yeah…That Italian offense was so strong they beat the up and coming Americans by how many goals…GO
DEUTSCHLAND!!!
Massimo

True we were kicked out of the world cup by the USA

i forgot that detail

dammit
pao

i don’t care about some tabloid, all that really matters is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZdw-9nNUpw&search=tardelli
spooky

It will be a glory day for us.
And it will be the revenge of 1970 and 1982.

3-1 Klose, Podolski,Ballack

Take it, dont cry!
Deutschland uber alles!

Way to trot out ancient history, poo.

Anyhow, we Germans will show that they are the superior race tonight.

Not greasy and sticky pizza makers like you Italian diving crying babies with your pathetic defense and zero attacking skill.

We’ll make you salute the fatherland!
squiggle

So boring. Passion is not synonymous with being an idiot.
ETucker

The pizza thing is just clever. It shows a good spirited rivalry, which is always good for the game.

The bear thing is stupid politics.

Italy has not won a World Cup since I was born, so all this talk of the great Azzurri squads means nothing to me. Germany has been the better team recently (Forget the 4-1 loss in Italy) and will probably win tonight via penalties.
dirk

Who cares what some stupid tabloid prints. The game is played on the field, not in the newspapers, and thank goodness, not in the blog rooms. The teams show more respect for each other than the supposed fans. Germany 2-1 in OT
Bye Bye

Ha ha Germany could not beat Argentina on it home turf in full time and extra time it hade to be done by penalties how can you even say that you beat Argentina? LOL! Argentina looked much better then you guys 100 times.
Charley

I just read that the referee (fool) that was in charge of the US/Italy game was place in charge of the semifinal between France and Portugal….if this is true, it is one of the reasons that ultimately you cannot take FIFA and soccer that seriously…
dirk

Bye Bye, Argentina had more possession time and that’s about all. A lot of that was sideways passing anyway, so if that qualifies as being better, then I suppose you view a 0-0 game as a victory for the team that keeps possession more. And how many shots did Argentina have on goal in the game. Fact is, games often come down to PK’s and Italy will fail if it comes to that.
Suzie Q

Yeah… do not ever ridicule the USA. We are coming…next time, with California Klinsi as our couch…. USA will begin to take the game very seriously and then watch out, world!
Go Germany
Suzie Q

Aqvamare… in the USA Daimler Chrysler is bombarding us with commercials… somehow they must compensate…
Go Germany!
dirk

are those commercials coming in the middle of the reporting of the top sports event we apparently have today? The hot dog eating contest being covered by ESPN (now there’s a sport, huh?)
Suzie Q

careful, miri… did you choke on a bratwurst? you sound like there is no oxygen going into your brain.
Suzie Q

Bye, bye: Is that why Argentina went bye bye?
dirk

Charming Miri. Hope you find your medication before the match starts
Deutschland uber alles!

Miri, I am sorry your country is not respect like mine
Massimo

Italy is in the final

Never doubted it

Germany kiss my ass
dirk

I doubt anyone will ever kiss an Italian ass, especially one as wide as yours.