no probs. i'm only taking an interest because we play them next, in serbia, and i know quite a few who have reservations about going only to end up possible victims of what appears to be bigger, eu-related, political skullduggery. we've enough political tensions of our own without getting caught up in someone else's.
Yup. UEFA ruled today that Italy wins 3-nil. Italy gets rewarded for their inept security. Nice work, UEFA.
How do you justify rewarding Italy for ineptitude? There are lots of ways to punish Serbia without rewarding Italy. e.g. all remaining home games played behind closed doors, deduct points, etc.
what you are NOT understanding is that this is the precedent that has already been established by other games of the past with a similar situation. when crazy fans disrupt a game to the point that the game has to be cancelled the team with the fans causing the major trouble is usually penalized and not the other way around. also Italy's security had no clue what was going to arrive, so there was hardly any "ineptitude" on their part. Serbian authorities "tried" in a lame attempt to pin the blame on Italian security saying they warned them 4-5 days prior, when it was actually less than 24 hours. This was proved with documents sent from Serbia with dates and times. Also if Serbian officials did indeed warn that many hooligans were going to arrive 4-5 days in advance, why then, please tell me why the fcuk did MANY innocent serbs take their children to such a dangerous event considering they had been warned by the serbian media for 4-5 days? It doesn't add up AT ALL! Also if the Serbian authorities knew 4-5 days before as they are "claiming" how the fcuk did these hooligans even get out of the country by boarding buses and trains!!!!???!!! They should have been stopped way before. So really the "ineptitude" lies with Serbia's slow and backward ways that still persist even in 2010. Sorry you lose this argument. That's why Italy was awarded a 3-0 victory.
I never said Serbia shouldn't be punished. In fact I said they should be punished much more than Italy. But Italy shouldn't be rewarded. The fine against Italy proves that they are partly to blame. What's stupid is UEFA fines them and rewards them at the same time. Seems as though they are a bit confused.
Bahahaha, when i read that, I thought Uefa were playing FIFA - MANAGER MODE..where Uefa was the manager of Serbia VS Italy and they forfeit...hence 3-0 LOSS
Italy and Prandelli are probably celebrating now, 3 easy points and a free +3 goal difference, cause IF serbia had played against italy, you never know, it could of been a draw or shock win for the Serbs.
Doubt it would have been a shock draw win or dra for the serbs.. Serbia were playing like shit and had just lost to estonia of all countries. While on the other hand Italy played 3 matches winning 2 very convincingly and drawing the other against N. Ireland in Northen Ireland, they should have easily won that game with the many chances they had. Also after those 3 games Italy only conceded 1 goal. So again I doubt it.
at the end of it all, what have these clowns achieved except to cost the ordinary fan money and disgrace their country? ordinary italian and serbian fans paid good money to watch a match. now it looks like northern ireland fans who had already booked will lose out too. great, well played ultras...........
I actually heard that Serbian FA did notify their Italian couterparts that an unruly Serbian ultras group with a violent agenda was coming. And, if this is the case, the blame is squarely on Italian security people.
But so is Italy. Very convincingly?? They beat Estonia 2-1 and trailed much of that match. In fact Estonia were unlucky not to take a 2-nil lead in the second-half when a shot hit the cross-bar. And N. Ireland is a minnow nation with a population under 2 million. Add those games on top of their display in South Africa and Italy are hardly convincing anyone at the moment.
No, they really don't 2 Wins, 4 Draws, 8 Losses Against Republic of Ireland however they have a fairly balanced one... 2 Wins, 4 Draws, 3 Losses...AND of the 9 games, Dublin had 5 and Belfast had 4. Give another to Belfast and they could be all level
northern ireland's competitive wc and euros match record in the last 4 tournaments to date, the last 6 years basically (seemed fair enough): W13 D10 L12 (incl home wins against slovenia, poland, denmark, sweden, spain and england, and away draws against czech rep, sweden, denmark and poland) it's fair to say we don't travel too well but aren't particularly easy to beat at home.
Please dude, you say ¨but so is Italy¨. Maybe that was true a few months ago before the WC and the WC itself but after they have played very well during the qualifier while still working with a NEW TEAM. I know that you didn´t see that Estonia game because although they were leading some not MOST of the match Italy even with that new team had the majority of the chances. And they eventually won. Estonia scored on the 31min then Italy scored in the 60th min, that´s a 29 min lead so try again dude. Then they beat Faroe Islands playing away 5-0. Although these teams are minnows the goal difference Italy beat them by was 7 goals for and ONE against. then they played N. Ireland in N. Ireland and playing away is never easy. with that in mind Italy had the majority of the chances and should have won easily but drew 0-0. so lets see, after 3 matches Italy played 3 matches (2 away) and scored 7 goals and allowed only 1. So yeah even though these teams are minnows Italy was still playing well considering they are rebuilding and scored 7 and only allowing 1. playing away to ANY team is NEVER easy and Italy did just fine
Serbia is trying very hard to make it look like Italy was incompetent and that they knew 4to 5 days before along with Serbian intelligence. that´s complete bullsh1t because Italy has shown that Serbia has sent no such warning until 24 hours before, which by then was too late. and like i said before, if serbia knew 4 to 5 days before that these dangerous hooligans were going there then why were there so many serbian families with children there if this was common knowledge in Serbia. IT DOESN´T ADD UP. Also if Serbian officials knew 4 to 5 days how the hell with that amount of time did they not prevent these hooligans from boarding the buses and trains. I MEAN HOW THE HELL DID THEY GET OUT OF SERBIA WITH THAT AMOUNT OF PREPARATION TIME. again it doesn´t add up. the blame lies mostly with serbia. sorry there is no disputing this. thanks for playing though.
I am assuming that any caps earned by the players (during the first 6 minutes of the abandoned match) won't be counted towards their total? I was mainly thinking of the situation pertaining to players like Zambrotta who are close to amassing 100 caps for their national side. Btw, the Bulgarian FA was considering cancelling the friendly match with Serbia (to be held on 17 November 2010 in Sofia) because of the disorder, which was caused by the fans, but eventually decided to go ahead as planned.
Not trying to negate you or anything, but I wouldn't put the blame squarely on the Serbian authorities for the following reasons: 1) Not all Serbian 'fans' came from Serbia. Or so I have read. Many were resident Italians and expats from other Western European nations. How can you hold Serbia responsible for movement of people who are not from within her borders? 2) I doubt that the Serbians got the flares from their home country ( or which ever place they came from). There would be checking for this kind of stuff at the border. Its very likely that they procured the stuff inside Italy. And the stadium guards incompetence is also very striking. So many people got in with so much 'ammunition'. I feel a fair judgment would be to replay the game. Whatever these 'fans' did, the vast majority of the fans and the Italian fans deserve better. They deserve to see the game. Also, punishing the football team for an event in which they have no hand or no control over feels wrong. At least morally wrong.
To me it doesn't feel wrong. If there were no punishment for a team, then I would always start a riot, when my team is behind. The fans need to know that their actions can and will harm the team they support. That doesn't mean that the home team can neglect security or something like that.
They got the flares in Italy with the help of Italian Ultras And there wasn't that much "ammunition" (flares) anyway. Just check last season's (iirc) derby in Genoa between Genoa and Sampdoria and watch how many flares they had...
Right, but there are ways to punish Serbia without rewarding Italy (e.g. play remaining home matches at neutral venue or behind closed doors). Plus if you just suspend a match it doesn't reward the rioters if their team was trailing because the game would just resume at a later date with the same scoreline. I never said Estonia led for most of the match.
This I agree with. Yes if their team was trailing and they began a riot then the match would just resume at the same time in the match with the same scoreline. However the precedent has already been set before many times when matches are stopped due to rioting. With the precedent always being that the team with the fans rioting is always punished usually with a loss of 3-0. That's why everyone was predicting and expecting this outcome.