australia put very little pressure on italy in the second half; they should have probed harder instead of belting the ball in from the halfway line.
that said, italy did sub in a defender to patch up the hole that was created from the red card situation. they defintely felt the effect of no kewell and no emerton though.
australia's gotten the butt end of the reffing all tournament, and that's all that needs to be said on that. i just think that the team at large deserves a medal for putting up with the shocking reffing they've endured - schwarzer knocked out of the way in the japan game that lead to their only goal, viduka being rugby tackled to the ground by simunic in the croatia match, among many others - and to conduct themselves the way they did in the spirit of the game is fantastic.
personally i think they deserved 9 points from their group matches - they played brazil off the park for 75 minutes and the croatia match was a complete farce that should've been abandoned until fifa could find a referee who knows the rules.
i still can't believe that the referee felt italy deserved a penalty, i just can't... the australian defender, neill, dived in front of the italian player who kicked the ball behind neill then jumped over him... and promptly fell over. is the referee blind or something?
