joemaica.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/3-0-and-then-what-happens/

But I can’t understand why you think there still has to be discussion about the first Dutch goal. Making a decision whether a player has left the pitch voluntary or not, can only be judged by cameras. Thus, as long as FIFA does not supporter cameras as refereeing material (let’s hope they will not) we will have to rely on judgement by linesmen.
So I hope we will end this discussion, because the goal was valid according to football-regulations and according the referee and linesmen….. Arriverdeci

What has Cannavaro done before and after the World Cup? Not much. He was good at Parma, rubbish at Inter Milan [apparently he had an agreement to play badly so his value would go down so as to be bough for a low fee by Juventus], good at Juve and semi decent at Real but apart from the World Cup has he ever been this amazing player that so many people seem to talk about? Can you compare Cannavaro to someone like Rio Ferdinand or Alesssandro Nesta? The answer is no.

If I were Donadoni I’d buy 2 houses, give one to Nesta and a smaller one to Totti in exchange for their return.

Why was the midfield Milanista? Even as a Laziale I say that the midfield should have been Giallozozza, Perrotta, De Rossi and Aquilani are much better than Ambrosini and Gattuso, as for Pirlo I’m not sure. I’ve never particularly liked Pirlo but he can’t be that bad.

Gone are the Maldini, Nesta, Cannavaro, Zambrotta days, welcome to the Grosso, Materazzi, Barzagli, Zambrotta days.

E ZAZZA ZAZZA ZAZZA ZAZZAMBROTTA,
E PEPPE PEPPE PEPPE PEPPERROTTA,
E CACCA CACCA CACCA CANNAVARO,
ALé ALé ALé, ALé ALé ITALIA.

Italy deserved to lose. Cannavaro has been useless since after the World Cup. The squad need to make a proper effort. It’s easy to not play so defensively. They made Italian football look like a joke….I’m guessing much to the delight of many EPL and La Liga fan pricks on this site. Oh I can’t wait for Mourihno to start with us, sort out the cunts fucking up Serie A.

guillermo wrote:
UEFA has emphasised that the goal scored by Netherlands striker Ruud van Nistelrooy in last night’s UEFA EURO 2008™ match against Italy in Berne was valid, and that referee Peter Fröjdfeldt acted correctly in awarding it.

Guillermo, Mr. Taylor can back up his reffing staff as much as he wants, the linesman still got the decision wrong in my opinion. Now, everyone here can shout “only stupid people can’t change their mind”, but I’m not the only one who thinks so. As Ahmed said, UEFA have every interest at ruling out any potential controversies and given the choice, will always rule on the side of the officiating staff.

For the sake of indulging you, let’s go over Mr. Taylor’s quote again:

Mr Taylor concluded: “So let’s be clear – the referees’ team applied the law in the correct manner. If we did not have this interpretation of the player being off the pitch then what could happen is that the defending team could use the tactic of stepping off the pitch deliberately to play players offside, and that clearly is unacceptable. The most simple and practical interpretation of the law in this instance is the one that is adopted by referees throughout the world – that is that unless you have permission from the referee to be off the pitch, you are deemed to be on it and deemed to be part of the game. That is why the Italian defender, even though his momentum had taken him off the pitch, was still deemed to be part of the game, and therefore the attacking player put the ball into the net, and it was a valid goal. The law in this place was applied absolutely correctly.”

Point nº1: we all agree a player cannot intentionally leave the field in order to put an opponent offside. That would be too easy.

Point nº2: it was not Panucci’s momentum that had taken him off the pitch, it was Buffon crashing all over him and leaving Panucci injured. Thus, the player was not in control of his actions, did not intentionally leave the field (be it by his run, or his “momentum” carrying him over the line) and could not have promptly re-inserted himself in play on account of lying motionless on the ground.

Now, what I can (and will) agree on, is that the linesman interpreted Panucci’s actions a different way. In his mind, he was unable to determine whether Panucci had intentionally left the field to circumvent the offside rule, and applied the rule in its simplest terms. However, whether the linesman applied the rule in good faith or not, is irrelevant. He still made a mistake.

I’ll give you one more thing to consider: would everyone have been so quick to side with the validity of RVN’s goal, had Panucci been lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, and knocked out of his senses?

John said:
I find that the first really does not mater much in this game. The dutch out played the Italians for the majority of the game. The basic principle in any sport is to out-play,out-chance,and out-score your opponent.The dutch excelled at this in all facets of the game.The dutch were the better team plain and simple.

And no one (certainly not me) is denying that. Neither am I making excuses that the entirety of Holland’s victory was based on controversy. The Dutch fully deserved their win and to put it simply, Italy played like sh**. However we can praise Marco Van Basten’s team all we want, questions about the validity of the first goal still remain.