Referee 1, Australia 0

Got to laugh at this excited announcer from the Chinese network CCTV in the big controversial ending in the Italy/Australia World Cup game.

For those who don't know, let me set this up for you.... Australia, who are only playing in their 2nd World Cup tournament, held the favoured Italian team to a nil-nil draw through this hard fought match.

Then, this occurred in extra injury time (Australia in yellow, Italy in blue). There were only 3 seconds left in the match!

It was so cruel to the Auzzie fans whose team played with honour and guts for over 90 minutes against an experienced Italian team... In my opinion, refs should never determine outcomes of games unless it is an absolute flagrant foul. To me, this foul was not in that category, hell not even close. The Australian defender did not intentionally trip the Italian forward - watch it again. He dove to block an anticipated shot and the Italian play "tripped" over him to draw a penalty shot. And it worked. The ref rewarded the Italian actor with the game ball. And I'll say one more thing - if this call was made on the other end of the pitch, most of my Italian friends would be outraged, for years to come. It was an awful call and the ref should have let the players determine the outcome of this important match.

Here's an article describing the fallout....