Brazil finally got beat...finally played a team that wasn't mediocre. Ghana should have beat Brazil, but they're just mediocre. They don't have the talent to finish, like greater teams do.

Wayne Rooney really needs to take some anger management lessons. Portugal didn't win as much as Wayne let the English down.

Italy vs Germany...
France vs Portugal...

Interesting Semi...

Zidane is back! He was SO Good today. Ronaldinho and Kaka really didn't do anything and they deserved the lost.

Damn it Germany finish these Italians off already!!!!

NOOOOO! I didn't want to see the corrupt italians get through.

Das ist nicht gut.

I hope I will not have to choose between Italy and France

I didn't see the last game to know if it was luck. But so far italians have been lucky divers!!!

AHA!!! I knew Italy would win........awesome!

I'll cheer for any team besides the Italians.
I hate Italian soccer fans, I hate Italian soccer divers, I pretty much hate everything Italian, except Pizza, and a spagotti.

I've only watched a few minutes here and there, and soccer is such a joke IMO. Example? In hockey, you can take your wodden or metal stick, and smash someones teeth out and maybe get 2-4 mins in the box. Soccer? You bump a guy in the box, his name is Luigi Pagotti so he dives to the ground like a little girl, gets a penalty shot, the other dude gets a red card and misses 2 games?

HAHA, soccer is such a pansy ass sport.

Soccer is the best and oldest sport in the world. Sure, there are divers and such but the pure talent is incredible.

First off, I'd like to say I'm not Italian. But Italy will win. They are a better team defensively over Portugal or France and their strikers are second to none. They have a full team of great athletes which are better then the rest of the field.

As much as I hate Italian football fans, they should take the win.

I never met a lot of you, but honestly, some of your comments here will get you a punch in the mouth if you said them to my face. Some of these comments are borderline racist. I, personally, would not say a lot of what is being said here about people of another race, regardless of what I believe.

It's one thing to talk about the soccer team, hell, they're there to be hated and rivaled. It's another to start making offensive remarks to an entire race because of it.

Typical tough guy Italian...

Good Luck on Sunday, leave it at that.

I had a response, but rather than get into it on this board, which I've been a respected member on for 6 years, I've leave it alone. I really can't be bothered.

Hey, what could I say, your punch in the mouth comment was clearly directed to me.

That's enough of that guys. Let's stay on the topic of the World Cup in this thread.

1 Hour till France gets a beat down by Portugal.

Portugal and Italy would be a good game.

HELL YEAH.

FRANCE GOT IT...

I've got nothing against Italians, it's just with the problems in their home league, I was hoping to see them get beat.

Props to them for getting this far...

Vive la France!

He's right, my gf is Italian but sometimes the fans are downright annoying. So cocky and quick to rub it in your face, but when they lose its an excuse. Germany or France wins a game, you have a few cheering but nothing like when u see the italians win.

It's definitely more 'in your face', but probably because there are about 150,000 Italians in the GTA, versus maybe 10,000 French and Germans. And I agree, some of the fans are most definitely annoying, but at least they're having a good time. It will all be over on Sunday night.

I live in Kitchener where we have a huge Portuguese population as well as in Cambridge. I think the Portuguese fans are great and it's not in your face at all. I was hoping they would make it to the finals.

Me too

I'm not too partial to either team, though I play for an Italian team here in London, so it would be nice to see Italy get it. I was hoping to see Brazil in the finals

Remember though, don't let the fans of the team interfere with the skill of the team. It's not the fans who win the games, and on all of the teams, are hardworking athletes who deserve respect.

Well, I guess Portugeese team practiced synchronized diving a lot.
I don't know how many of you cought Ronaldo and another guy dive at the exact same time in the French box.
I really dislike Portugeese team's style of winning. They seem to have taken the whole acting/flopping to a new level, although other teams are at fault for this too. I can't respect winning at any cost. Time and time again you see soccer players fall to the ground at the slighest contact. They continue to roll around holding their faces/legs, and in the replay you see there's been no contact at all. Where is their honour?
I really liked Germany's style since it looked like they actually made an effort to stay on their feet.

Check this out, divin at its best, lol!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPVOBrbqQXo&

and it's all over...

I guess it was Italy's turn.

only if I knew what the old man was thinking!

FRANCE was ROBBED.

Zidane should've headbutted that guy in da FACE.

What is with soccer? I watched the game. I thought it was olympic swimming with all the diving. The only actual hit was the head butt. And for a guy to be down that long for a hit to the sternum? I brok mine and was up faster than that.

End of rant

Gino and Gina are partying hard!
ok guys.. joking here, relax!

But honking non stop is for sure annoying. I feel bad for those who don't give a damn about soccer. If the french had won, most harm they would do is to pop open a wine bottle.

Yeah, the honking and partying into the night was probably very annoying for people with families who had to get up for work this morning. People were paryting well into the early hours this morning along St. Clair and College St.

But, it's over now, and on with our lives. That being said, I was really happy to see a lot of Hispanics, Asians, Afro-Canadians and Canadians partying right along with the Italians. It was very close to a 50/50 ratio between Italians and everyone else having a good time last night. That's why this city kicks ass. Most people find an excuse to party, and they do it.

I lost the fever before the tournament ended. The diving just got to me too much. They should really do something about it.

For instance if you have to get your ass haulled off the field in a stretcher that's the end of your day. That should be a mandatory substitution. Several times I saw players in so much pain they had to be carried off the feild only to be back in play less then a minute after hitting the sidelines. What a joke.

Also there should be judgement after the fact for players caught doing blatant dives. Some group of judges review extreme cases and it caught the player sits out the next game.

Shootouts are possibly the greatest suckout way to win any game let alone the World Cup final. Just my opinion...

No one wants to see a shoot out. This is what television has done to the sport. The cfl is worse.

France outplayed Italy hands down in the 2nd, and as far as diving goes , it was way worse in other games.

It's an awesome sport , usually wicked respect amongst the players etc etc.

Diving has stopped me from watching it on tv at all now, and i only watched the last 4 games this year.

However whining and crying to referee's is a huge part of many sports. You cant watch a game of nhl cfl or baseball with out seeing it. Sad

When is the last time you saw an NHLer get hauled off the ice on a stretcher come back on the ice for the next face off or the next shift or the same game for that matter?

I didn't expect any different from you Nigel. There was always going to be something for you to be sore about, even if they won 10-0.

Rules are rules, they can't play on forever. Italy could have lost the same way. The Italians were eliminated from the last three World Cups by penalty shootouts. It seems fitting that they lift the curse by finally winning.

Italy won the World Cup, they're enjoying it in style, and I'm loving every minute of it.

Italy didn't win that game as much as Zidane and France lost it. It seems that after the disallowed goal, France was playing to win, and Italy was totally on the defensive. I really didn't want to see the game go to penalty shots either, especially with Italy's history. Zidane's move was very crushing to his team, and it eliminated their best penalty shot kicker. It was really out of character for such a top player, who surely has absorbed a boat load of trash talk over the last 20 years. Maybe Materazzi is a hypotist, and he commanded Zidane to charge him like a bull?

Diving and whining is unfortunately commonplace in all upper tier soccer leagues. The Italian league, the English Premier league, Spanish, South American, etc. It will be tough to get rid of such a big part of the game these days. Maybe penalizing players after reviewing the game for diving is one way to stop it? Or, we get used to it, and accept it as part of the game, and assist referees in the severity of their calls through replays.

Go Italy!! What a game.

We played a good first half, then a not so good second half. We also had a goal called back for being offside, but it was not!! That was a goal.

France dove and got a free goal. We got the only real goal of the match. We win...

Actually the strectcher is part of the rules.The ref calls the stretcher out. It forces a player to leave the field to stop them from eating up alot of time, or to give their team a breather (remember 2 45min halfs, 1 5min break ).

Also it means the player is not allowed back on the field till the ref allows them, so meanwhile the divers team does play shorthanded, and the ref can leave him there for abit if he usspects a dive. NOt that i like it.

In the NHL i see guys whinning to the ref on almost any penalty. In this years playoffs i saw guys drop their sticks time after time the second a defensive player touches their arm with their hand.

I saw roloston step out towards guys and touch them, with his stick ,then drop it and go running to the ref for a penalty. The annoucers called that "experience" . ( btw i've been cheering for the oilers since '87 ).

Playing to draw penalties is a huge part of hockey, thats why they have whole lines devoted to something called the power play.

This game will never be what it could be here due to the diving. There are more youth right now playing soccer in this country than any other sport! Yet look at it on the professional level....lacking indeed.

I mean it's hard to watch the nhl playoffs, watch a guy like ryan smythe takes puck in the face, leave 3 teeth and some blood on the ice,and comes back 10 mins later stitched up and ready to rock. And then see these grown men cupping their faces and crying around just to make sure the ref believes them.

They need to make diving a card , get them all understanding that it wont be tolerated, and get past this crap.

Look at portugal , they had a real shot at beating france, and they threw away real chances to score on dives hoping for a penalty kick. That ref did an outstanding job in that game, and they lost because of diving.