Italy wins World Cup 2006

The soccer World Cup for 2006 is all over with Italy winning the final against France this morning in Berlin. I thought I'd just jot down a few of my comments about this year's tournament.

First of all good on Australia for how well they did in the World Cup. I know there is a lot of sledging between Australia and New Zealand when it comes to sport but it was good to see them do well - getting through to the second round (even though half their team are Croatians!)

Now there's a few matches in the Quarter Finals I'd like to comment on. I wasn't too fussed who won this tournament - as long as it wasn't England! I just can't stand the English soccer team. I know there are a lot of English soccer fans in NZ but I am not one of them! So when England was beaten by Portugal I was very, very happy! The two teams that I like, Germany and Argentina, faced off in the quarter finals. It was hard to accept that a game as big as this would come as early as the quarter finals. Germany won this one so I thought it was time now to support them through to the end. France beating Brazil was a little bit of a surprise, but I guess this wasn't South America's year. (I think for most of the World Cups a European team has won it if the tournament was held in Europe and a South American team has won it if it was held in the Americas).

In the semi-finals I was very shocked when Italy beat Germany - especially when they scored their two goals in the last two minutes! I really thought Germany would go all the way, and so did the crowd in the stadium that day. I think Germany was just killing time until the penalty shoot out because they knew they would have a good chance of winning that, but they did not bet on Italy scoring twice in the last couple of minutes of extra time! In the other semi-final I thought it would be good to see Portugal win as they have never won a World Cup, but France won that one.

And that brings us to this morning's final - Italy v France. The score was still 1-1 after extra time, and this meant a penalty shoot out which Italy won 5-3. Now I don't think a World Cup final should be decided on a penalty shoot out - it's a much too important match to be decided upon in this manner. Perhaps they should bring in the "golden goal" where the first team to score after full time wins. True the game may go on for a very long time, but if the teams knew that the golden goal was in place they may try harder to score in extra time instead of hanging out for the penalty shoot out.

Anyway, congratulations Italy, and roll on South Africa 2010!!