Italy Out of the World Cup. No, Seriously

Never before both finalists went out in the group stage. Proves past merits don't mean jack in nowadays football.

hah-ha

/french fan :-)

Wow what a game in the last 10 minutes!!! I found it strange that Italy could suddenly start to play football when their lives depended on it. Yet in their previous games they just went through the motions.
Lippi showed his true class by running down the tunnel without shaking hands with his opposite number. What an ignorant piece of work he is. Typical Italians they manage to be graceless in defeat and victory.

Made my day.

finally the italian ego is put in check….can visit with France on the way home

Heartbreaking for Italy fans, but not entirely unexpected. The pundits all called Italy favorites, but I dont think any follower of Serie A thought that the team Lippi assembled was a favorite to win anything.

It is sad because Italy legitimately has some great talents. Too bad Lippi overlooked most of them.

On the up side, though, Prandelli (the new Azzurri coach) can only go up from this point.

the team was different for the world cup 2006!!!!besides good players as zambrotta and cannavaro were younger. the only italian fault is building soccer teams using players from other countries.

The Italian obsession with the ethnic/racial purity of their teams–and keeping out those mongrels from other countries (while trashing other teams for having “mongrel” players) is truly revolting.

Not really. They just want a team called the Italian national team to actually have Italians. Otherwise, why keep track of the country at all, just call it Euro mix team 1, 2, 3.

Yeah Slovakia show you how is european soccer,and how pride are players,because they arent play just for money,so i hope they ll be much better in next few games

I disagree, if that team had been used correctly, it could have gone far. Lippi fooled around with tactics, playing certain players(Canna cost us at least 3 goals) and playing other out of position (Marchisio, Iaquinta).

How many world cups has France won outside of France? that's what I thought.

I said, hah-ha ;-)

I wish I could've read sandra350's reply before it was removed.

However, sooner or later all national teams, specially those representing economic developed nations and those with modest players, will be begin to integrate foreign born or first generation players.

What is the definition of an Italian player? One who speaks the language and was born and raised in Italy. Wouldn't Mario Balotelli be considered an Italian player?

just seen lippi post match interview on tv, what the hell is he on about he takes full blame for not having them mentaly prepared ! what mental preparation do reigning world champions need for f@@k@ sake ????? just another bunch of over hyped, over payed under acheiving , self indulgent primadona pussys.

Italians were paid back in their own coin as Slovakians showed some world class theatrics to waste valuable time which is usually the forte of Italians. Poetic justice !

What a wonderful result. Go Slovakia !!!

just seen lippi post match interview on tv, what the hell is he on about he takes full blame for not having them mentaly prepared ! what mental preparation do reigning world champions need for f@@k@ sake ????? just another bunch of over hyped, over payed under acheiving , self indulgent primadona pussys.

james

2 draws and 1 loss in a group made up of Slovakia, Paraguay, and New Zealand.

Just…not… good enough