Decade in Review: World Cup 2002

I think our Euro 2004 squad was stronger. Our midfield on this squad was way too defensive minded with Tommasi, Gattuso, Cristiano Zanetti, Di Biagio, and Di Livio. The only creative midfielder was Cristiano Doni (still amazes me that he represented Italy at a major tournament).

And of course, the big regret of this tournament was Baggio not being called up by Trap. Baggio deserved to be there and would’ve made our team so great, but over time I came to understand Trap’s decision.

If we had beaten Korea I think we would’ve went to the final. Vieri was in such great form.

is this da history channel?

Who got robbed at the expense of S Korea, more? Us or Spain?Both shameful displays of refereeing.

Byron FUCKING Moreno!! What a fool. They shouldve strung that bumbling idiot up.

man o man italy did get robbed of 5 goals that world cup. all of them r all incorrectly ruled disallowed. if they had all 5 goals allowed, italy woulda finished top of their group undefeated, and proly would’ve never had to play korea and made it all the way to the final and maybe win it, because they would never had to play the asian teams that the ref was luvin soo much. that world cup was absolute bullshit. italy deserved way betterr

moreno figlio di puttana

Def a game, and the one with Spain after us, that was tilted toward S. Korea. Is the UN General Secretary the same dude who was involved with “organizing” that World Cup?

I’m not Italian, but I just wanted to say:

Worst.World Cup.EVERRR

2002 infinite hate

Agree Seth. Just awful.

dreadful world cup. you wait 4 years for them to come around and then shit like that happens. The team should have just decked that prick moreno and walked off the pitch.

“If that was shirt tugging, then what most players do in matches must be rape.” BAHAHAH!!

I can’t do it. I’m not watching those videos. I’m not putting myself through that again.

i cried after the Korea game (I’m not even Italian).. to me, there was no world cup in 2002. Brazil and Italy both have 4 world cups!

Spain got screwed over more than us. Their 2 goals disallowed were such bad calls. The ball wasn’t even touching the end-line on the second, let alone across it. And the first one was common ref sense, if there isn’t a blatant conclusive reason to cancel out a goal, let it stand. With so many players in the box I can’t find one reason to cancel out that goal looking at replays.

It’s alright, South Korea got exposed as being dogshit in 2006. While Italy and and Spain were both vindicated becoming World and European Champions respectively. Karma’s a bitch.

It is all about corruption in world cup 2002, I believe FIFA deliberately wanted South Korea or Japan to progress to the semi-finals for one reason which is to keep the crowd coming to the games. so it was business at it has to done in expense of Italy and Spain. It was a dirty game play from FIFA who ironiclly calls for fair play but they have their own politics to match fix games for the best of their interest and to keep the dollar rollin. Even Sep Platter has had a hand in this, he never liked Italy and you can closely see it when Italy won World Cup 2006.

Worst world cup of all time, and I have the feeling the same might happen next year. I absolutely hated South Korea back then, they were rubbish yet they got so far, and they think ’cause they were good. LOL NO. Disgusting.

xyz, nail on the head.

This tournament still breaks my heart. STILL. The most disgusting ’sporting’ event I have ever witnessed in my life. I still to this day despise Korea (and Koreans to be fair, call me a racist, I don’t care), and if you want to despise them more go on youtube and search ‘Macheda racism’ and observe Korea’s outrage at Macheda’s perceived racism when he celebrates a goal and then read the hundreds of comments made by Koreans underneath about Italy and Italians and remember it is not racist to hate the Koreans, the most corrupt nation in Asia and definitely the stupidest buggers in the region.

Tomek

i agree i think next year will be the same i dont know why but my feeling says it

South Africa have the change to glory their (by manipulating the game) and now we don’t only have S Korea we also have N Korea. I think great teams like italy but also others will be robbed.

If South Africa get past the group stages, people should eaise questions of a fix. That team is crap. Speaking of crap, Sepp Blatter needs to go, that guy just looks corrupt. I cant take anything he says seriously. He talks as if he is carrying some secret, that no one will ever find out

^This. South Africa’s best player is McCarthy (who is just a decent striker in the Premier League, nothing more), and he doesn’t even play for them anymore. If they get anywhere near even the quarter finals then I declare shenanigans.

But of course, the World Cup in South Africa will have a similar story just like what happened in World Cup 2002. With due all respect to all nations but nations like south korea, north korea and south africa should not host a prestiguos cup like the world cup, fifa let it happen for south africa to host the world cup for political reasons in addition to business. someone told me that south africa did not qualify for Africa Nations Cup which will be in Nigeria I think in Jan. 2010, plus we all saw they played regular football except for one game in Confederations Cup 2009. Do you know one thing, south africa will progress to the semi-finals, how? ask fifa LOOL

i dont think that south africa will be fixed…lippi will fuck our chances of doing well, well before blatt does!
what do you guys reckon the score will be against the dutch?

mauro zarate for italy
http://www.goal.com/en/news/1863/world-cup-2010/2009/11/10/1617053/mauro-zarate-might-declare-himself-available-for-italy-agent
also
ezequiel schelotto decided to represent italy instead of argentina

i’d be so up for that! he’s great…he could be our cassano!

is Ezequiel Schelotto italian at all?

@mike
schelotto is an italian surname, so i guest his italian

good…he’s real tall too…good to have some height on the team!

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=goal-marcellolippiallbutconfirms&prov=goal&type=lgns

This not good news.

nope…no surprise either. its a vague statement though..could mean anything.
he has called up some interesting men over time though…especially in friendlies…you never know what’s gonna happen in june.
Let’s forget Cassano though. Lippi would sooner call me up before Fantonio. Maybe that’ll be the big upset. Me playing for Italy..after all im over 30 and slow…im in with a chance!

ok, so I see that the conversation has shifted to the recent Italy squad, well here is one sure thing about Lippi and the possibility of calling up new players, he has said and I quote:“This is the first training camp since we qualified and I only have three games left before the tournament starts. I don’t have much time for verification.” Of course, he does not have enough time to do anything right now, he had it when he was hired after euro 2008, he could of done something or at least with Confed. Cup but he sticked with his old guard in addition to calling up some new faces, but his favorite starting line-up are the veterans.

I noticed that you guys wanting Lippi to call for mauro zarate for italy
+ ezequiel schelotto, are you guys dreaming? I do not think Amauri would get a call from Lippi, (Amauri is not my favorite) since joining Juventus he has not done anything magnificent really, Italia has better quality than Amauri, but to me the case is closed as Lippi has declared it openly that he’s already got his squad to south africa in mind. I just will wait after world cup 2010 and hoping essential changes will happen.

can sme one write a massage to rai sport or sky sport italy so they monitor the refs that fifa chose i mean fifa deliberately chose bad refs so they cansay oh it is not our fault its the refs fault

I remember I went to work after the Korea game (when I use to work at Wal-Mart while in school) and I destroyed a wall with a crowbar bar in the back room. It felt good until I saw a Korea flag on a car.

I haven’t been on here for a couple of days and people are losing their heads already:

By mikederob | November 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm

i’d be so up for that! he’s great…he could be our cassano!

- Are you kidding me? Zarate is our cassano? WTF! hahah, Thanks but we already have THE CASSANO who is already ITALIAN. If it’s any cassano that should play for us its him. What hole do you people crawl out of? It should be fumigated.

Lippi would not be coaching the Azzurri if he didn’t think he had a shot at winning the world cup. Sadly, he has allowed personal issues to bear fruit and now we have a media/public outcry for Cassano – who deservidly should be on this team. Sadly lippi will not let bigones be bigones and thus we have the situation we have. Because of this foolish ignorance we will likely NOT win the world cup and will face humiliation. Thank you mr lippi for being the italian ASSHOLE of 2009. It was a close call between you and Berlusconi but Milan is doing better now so you take the cake!

with that being said, I am interested to see how this version of the azzurri perform in the next two games. then I will judge if we are completely lost. Although I very much believe we will NOT be going with any of the new additions to the world cup – instead this team will be based on the Confed cup team minus TONI.

Worst world cup ever IMHO.
Good thing we won it back in 2006!
Does anybody know who gave the assist to Vieri on disallowed goal #1?

The Dutch style of play is the kryptonite to the Italian way of playing the game. That fast, constantly moving quick style of soccer is the perfect strategy against the methodical, poised, skilled and patient way of play that the Italians are masters of. Teams are starting to pick that up, and Italy has suffered. The way the US competed with Italy in the WC shows. Fast, fast, fast…don’t give the Italians time to think. Lippi needs to address this issue before June asap.

Matty T, Italy somehow managed to defeat Holland during a friendly before WC ‘06, by 3-1. However, the latest encounter ended up in the infamous slaughter during euro 08.