World Cup

And the real money here is in the TV rights that are around the football. Curiously the two teams who have dominated the Italian scene in the last 10 years and are in the scandal now (Milan and Juventus) always had a perfectly common view on how to manage that rights, and recently they both sold their exclusive rights to Mediaset (the group of Mr Berlusconi who, btw, is also owner of Milan)
I think the judges are willing to look inside this agreements and money flow.

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Mr Berlusconi and his own Mediaset group are now happy:
-Mr Galliani, a puppeteer on the same level as Mr Moggi but a little smarter will be banned for 1 year only instead of being radiated as a duty, if we take in consideration his double role as Milan manager and federal president.
-Milan ( and others)can buy the best ,devalued players in particular Buffon for a very discounted price.
-The sentence has note banned Milan from european competitions( Milan penalization isn't so heavy to forbid to play UEFA cup)
-Mediaset TV will pay less money to Juventus:their agreement has a clause for wich the reward will be reduced if the team is penalized to II division for technical/disciplinar reasons

Italian Football Federation is happy:the flow of money from Mediaset TV (NDR for the non Italian friends = Berlusconi) will not be stopped neither dramatically reduced, as it could happen with Milan in II division

The Referee association,really one of the last feudal systems in XXI century, is happy for their public prestige has been saved: the key of the enquiry was the contact between Juventus managers and some referees, but none of the latter has been given a really heavy penalty from the federal court: the "privilege" to punish them has been left to their own "family".

Wow I was just talking to the Italian guy who drives the Ice Cream truck to the hanger every day and he is quite happy with the results. He thinks they deserve it.

Wow I was just talking to the Italian guy who drives the Ice Cream truck to the hanger every day and he is quite happy with the results. He thinks they deserve it

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He could be a Milan supporter .

I agree that they deserve a penality.I disagree with such an heavy pain since an evidence that the result of any game was illegally arranged in 2004-2005 has never been proved.

Well, it may also be a Inter supporter.
They don't win the League since the times when I had hard-on many times a day.

Next time tell him this 'Before being too happy, guess about the jokes in the fearsome case that you don't win next year even with Juve and Milan out of the game...'

I will ask him tomorrow who his team is.

Well both Zidane and Materazzi got bans today for their involvement in the headbutting incident. Zidane got 3 games (will do community service for FIFA instead) and a £3260 fine while Materazzi got a 2 game ban and a £2170 fine.

BBC SPORT | Football | World Cup 2006 | Zidane given ban and fine by Fifa

Zidane certainly left his mark on the game, although he didnt leave the way he'd hoped. People will remember him for his outstanding ability, but mostly for that one unfortunate incident that was provoked. I'm siding with Zinedine on this one.

I really dont care.

The only thing I care about now is the Euro Cup 2008 which is being held in Austria-Switzerland.

Deutschland Wir werden Europameister sein!

Well, everybody may like or not that Italy won the Cup

Fact is that France has lost not because of the expulsion of Zidane, but because they have not been able to score a goal even if they attacked more.
France scored only on penalty that hit the crossbar and bounced inside, Italy scored twice on action (one goal was nullified by an offside of one inch) and hit another crossbar.
In football you have to shoot on goal, if you attack 90 minutes and are not able to score, the best you can achieve is 0-0
At inverted good luck, Zidane's penalty would had bounced outside and Toni's stroke would had bounced inside after hitting the crossbar, and the match would have been over before overtime.

So said:
1 - It was not Zidane's first time : in Champions league he headbutted a Amburg player and got expelled, in 1998 at world Cup he walked on an Algerian player and got expelled. So Zinedine is not a Saint, and cannot be 'excused' for what he did. He can be humanly understood, but to say that he did well is just too much.
If we apply this rule, every forward is authorized to headbutt 'his' defender, because in every match insults always go back and forth.
2 - Zidane should be remembered for the great player that he is, not for the few times he was carried away by his nerves.
3 - The incident was manipulated and politicized by the FIFA, it seems that France needed an excuse for having not won the match.
It is the first case in football history that a verbal provocation is punished like a violent physical reaction.
Good signal, if it means that verbal provocation is now not tolerated as it was until the evening of July 9, 2006.
We will see how FIFA will judge in future the other players that will insult their opponents: I see a lot of work for the lawyers.
4 - I subscribe Adler's point: the cup is over and the Euro 2008 is the next field. And France and Italy are in the same qualification run... will be interesting!

I will travel to Switzerland and Austria to watch some games and I really hope that since they are so close and so similar to Germany that the party here in Germany will be similar to how the World Cup was. This German national team did more than what they could have been asked for, they brought a nation together and I damn proud of them!

The flags here are still flying from every car and every window!

so're most of them over here, but only because all the beer drinking lard arses can't be bothered to take them down.....