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http://football.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/story/0,1273,-1817843,00....

Trapattoni Blames Ref For Italy Demise
Ananova
Tuesday June 18, 2002 4:07 PM

Giovanni Trapattoni blamed bad refereeing decisions for Italy's World
Cup exit at the hands of South Korea.

The Italians looked to be heading for the quarter-finals until Seol Ki
Hyeon scored in the 88th minute to cancel out Christian Vieri's
opener.

Then Ahn Jung-hwan, who missed a first-half penalty, was the Korean
hero with a dramatic winner three minutes from the end of extra time.

But Trapattoni was angry that his side had a goal disallowed - for the
fifth time in the tournament - and felt that Francesco Totti should
not have been sent off either.

He said: "We have a lot to be unhappy about.

"I don't understand why we had a player sent off and a goal
disallowed. It is not the first time it has happened for us in the
competition.

"The players are not to blame, they played well. I think we were the
ones who deserved to win.

"We had three or four chances, including one for a golden goal from
Gennaro Gattuso plus the one Vieri missed in normal time.

"I think it was an exciting game and Korea showed a lot of heart but
we had a lot of good opportunities.

"We should be the team in the quarter-finals."

--

Paul
www.footballpyramid.co.uk

Boohoo. Tell your players not to dive next time then. After all, if he'd got
a penalty for that, it would have blatantly cheated Korea out of a
quarter-final spot.

Ah, the wonders of perspective. How many zillion times have we heard the
losers cry "We was robbed!"

I'm still waiting, though, after all these years of playing and watching
this wonderful game of ours, for someone to say (publicly at least) "We
did not deserve to win; we had the game gifted to us by the referee"...

Taking responsibilities for one's failures is the hallmark of a great
man. I don't suppose Il Trap would even consider blaming himself or his
own players for having lost the game, yet by his own admission, it was
his side's (and ultimately his own) failures that led to this defeat:

Much easier to blame it on the referee, who from my neutral perspective,
had as good a game as anyone else on the pitch that day.