Germany 2010, bitch

haha they will be old...Argentina has messi and tevez...they win

Germany actually has a lot of young players this time, but I'd put Argentina as the favorite too. Messi was terribly under-used in this tournament, and if he continues to progress, he will be unstoppable in South Africa.

They impressed me too. The media was hyping them up to no end here - but I still felt that even 3d in thei group would be ok. But under Hiddinks leadership they managed to get far enough where losing to Italy was a major dissapointment. Plenty of potential though.

Even if Materazzi was a mega racist, actually headbutting him for trashtalking is still ridiculous, dumb, and unjustifiable.

erm...most of our player are 25 and younger. five of them could even play in the under 21 team

During the game, indeed. Especially, I'd put the emphasis on dumb. Really dumb considering it was the WC final.

However, I would have cheered for Zidane if he had just beaten up Materazzi after the penalties. I certainly would have.

well its funny.

the focus in the newspapers here and the media is no longer the italy won or even zidane but Matarazzi. Everyone wants to know what he said. They don't even care anymore about Zidane getting physical anymore. Barely anyone is focussing on how you don't do something like that during a match. they just care about what the italian said and checking to see if he deserved the treatment.

I think it was poetic justice mandated from God. Really. After Zidane was awarded that penalty kick to beat the Portuguese, he was destine to have something bad happent to him. That's karma.

Too lazy to translate the article but if Materazzi really insulted Zidane in a racistic way, Italy could lose the title. In March the FIFA wrote a new resolution that if there a racistic insults from players or officials the team will lose three points in league play or the game in knock-out play

I would've liked to see Zidane winning the world cup, just to take it and smash it against Materazzi's head.

Even if it does turn out racist, you think they'll actually reverse it? with all the controversy for the final match?

outside of some lip readers, i doubt anyone can ascertain what really happened. then again, fifa took no action during the other matches when a lot of african teams were complaining about being racially ridiculed.

Oh baumer...once again, that penalty was on Henry.

After all the bull the FIFA did this World Cup, I would't rule anything out.

BTW: An italian politician said after the win that the french tram didn't deserve the win because they played without an own identity with "niggers, muslisms and communists". Really a class act those Italians

please link it .. even if its in another language. I HAVE GOT TO READ THIS!

aha ... found it.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArt ... RACISM.XML

No surprise, there are quite a few radical politicians in Italy. I remember when they complained about Michael Schumacher humming along to the Italian anthem saying it was disrespectful. What narrow minded gits.

i highly doubt they will reverse because it would cause riots!

So why did Zidane get to take the kick?

racism is alive and well in europe.

It's not like basketball, baumer. You can choose to have anyone on the field shoot the penalty or freekick after a foul is committed.

Both Lippi and Klinsmann resigned.

Oh, ok. Well that doesn't seem fair.

ofcourse it is.

It doesn't and shouldn't matter who the striker was. It takes an entire team effort to get into the penalty area, the guys who make the pass, the ones who cover the defenders and spread them out, not just the guy who had the ball and got tripped. When you're tripping a guy, you're not tripping his chance to score but the entire team's chance to score.

The kick should be taken by anyone.