Yes, a very good summary. No what if this or what if that, no maybe's, no punctuation, just pure fact in one non-stop sentence. Compact!

Absolutely spot on, Eddie. No matter what Materazzi said, Zidane didn't just lose his cool - he went absolutely mad. After reading the last few articles on the matter, the sympathy campaign is certainly on the road already. Compiled videoes of Matrix' tackles and roughing up people has absolutely nothing to do with Zidane, who's been a hot-head for years anyway. Lip-readers my arse. PS: That Times article is rubbish. They are just mentioning things Materazzi could have said to make Zidane go crazy, before one of them talk this is just speculation - and a cruel type of speculation aswell: How would you like to be accused of mocking a man's death? Who wouldn't be? Even if he dd say something (which is highly likely), he has the right to be insulted when people suggests such awful things.

So basically you're saying the owners are willing to gamble on promotion, despite sending out negative signals on a regular basis for a while now? Granted, the Heskey sale has covered the three signings, and I'm sure they cut costs quite a lot when they released Cunningham & co., but surely the 20m (??) loss has to be covered somewhere? ... that being said, they still have to replace the released players. (does anyone have a full list of the players released, Dunn is still there isn't he?)

Okay, a little roundup: - Birmingham relegated (actually had to scroll down past Barnsley and next to Burnley to find them on newsnow!) - Cunningham plus a few other senior players released - Heskey sold for a stunning £5,5m - Pennant will stay, unless someone pay silly money - In: Cameron Jerome, Stephen Kelly and Neil Danns, they are now linked with the out-of-contract Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. Can someone please explain how the hell they can afford to strenghten their squad after being relegated? Birmingham my favourite for promotion, sadly.

I will be very disappointed if Italy doesn't win this, they have been the best team throughout and deserves a win against an, for me, uninspiring French team. The only reason I can see that could make me want French victory in this match is Zinedine Zidane, but he has won enough in his career anyway - it's a lot more important to me that Francesco Totti get a gold to wrap up his International career. As I have said earlier, I rate him above anyone else in the world in club football, but he has struggled more for Italy. He has been performing better and better throughout this tournament whilst regaining fitness, and even though I expect France to try and take him out of the game with some tough tackles early on, I believe he will stand out and help Italy win this. Forza Italia!

I think you just won the annual "least necessary quoting award" there, Fife Two good quotes late at night, courtesy of Channel4.com: “I don’t know if the editor of Der Spiegel has some sort of problem because he got beaten up by an Italian as a child or his wife has been cheating on him with an Italian Stallion.” - Gennaro Ivan Gattuso. “When we were on the field, Gianluca Pessotto was the only teammate who had permission to give me a talking to. Now it’s my turn to shake him out of it.” - Paolo Montero: A hardman with a heart of gold.

See, that might say more about my knowledge levels, but I haven't heard much about any of those. Nuno Gomes was a big hit when he bursted through, but has faded away a little as far as I know, and can't be counted as a world class striker. The irony is, if Portugal had a striker like Crespo, Toni, fully fit Vieri or even Zigic, they would look so much more dangerous. Pauleta is decent and has scored a lot of goals, but as a lone striker at his age I don't think he's sharp enough.

And the one and only reason for that belief is Mark Hughes. Summarized: Jeffers will cost us very little, he has a neat contract which allows us to just not pay him much unless he performs, and therefore this is a totally acceptable deal for us.

France were awfully boring, Portugal were just awful. Just out of interest, has Portugal had any world class strikers since Eusebio?

Jankulovski would have been f a n t a s t i c !

Views like yours make me want Italy to win even more! Oh well, bring on Tour de France.

Our percentages are gone now, then?

So, anyone changed their mind on who they want to win the World Cup? Awful match.

Well, I'll just have to disagree with you then Hasta, but I'm accustomed (customed?) to Italian football and enjoy the nice passing play, not necessarily just to score goals. Italy rarely played the ball off the ground, and in defence they always had the cool and technique to keep possession - which I thouroughly enjoy watching. Cannavaro is arguably the best defender in the world, and Matrix looked good today aswell as the attacking fullbacks. Even Del Piero and Totti managed to combine today, which rarely happens.. As for the final ball, I agree to some extent, Luca Toni rarely looked dangerous and were left alone for much of the game - but Totti's through balls to Perrotta's tireless runs certainly pleased me. England wouldn't perform like that, because they base their game on pace and strength, and in my opinion they don't have the quality to play Italy's passing game either. But that's a whole other discussion..

YES! Absolutely fantastic win, I loved the full two hours of good football and then the climacs, Grosso and Del Piero's goals. If you think this was a boring match, we have two completely different views on football. Delighted to see Totti back, didn't put a foot wrong and finally his passing was back to normal. Pirlo was excellent in the centre, he always plays with a bit of risk - but today he only had one poor pass I think. Glad to see Del Piero get the final goal tbh, he's not my favourite player and he is no where near Totti in my book, but he has had a great career and it will be a nice way to end it. FORZA ITALIA!

It's time to step up, Francesco, show your greatness! Italy to win 2-1, Forza Italia!

First of all, it's Ghana - USA, not that it matters that much.. I have a bet on Ghana for this one, but I'm very unsure. Ghana has showed promise, whilst USA in my opinion got off a bit easy because of Italy's poor showing on Saturday. 2-1 Ghana, and the Italians to win hopefully. (add a sensational Togo draw against France to that, and I'm about £120 wealthier come the weekend )

Is it really that unbelievable? When looking at the England squad, I can't see - with the exception of Rooney and J.Cole / Beckham - any players with the techniqual ability of players in the other "big nation" teams. (Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Italy, France, Germany) Comparison with Argentina: Defence: Even steven, mostly because of Pekerman's silly Zanetti drop, Argentina scores a point on Sorin's good passing and Ayala's pace - England okay in this department, even with A.Cole lacking match practice. Midfield: Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, J.Cole - Cambiasso, Mascherano, Riquelme, Maxi First of all, Argentina has brought players that complement (sp?) each other very well. Mascherano is the anchorman, a world class at that, Cambiasso is both hardworking and can pass the ball around very well, whilst Maxi Rodriguez is more of a winger, but with good techniqual ability. In front of them, the worldclass playmaker Riquelme, who can hit all kinds of passes, long, short, high, low, and is also very mobile - he is always there to pass to, and he is excellent at link-up play. He can do this because Mascherano is excellent at doing the hard work defensively, and both Cambiasso and Maxi have good stamina. England's midfield has first of all three very good passers of the ball - LONG range. Joe Cole is the dribling wide player, but his passing quality vary a lot. I would say that none of the four has the extreme Pirlo, Riquelme, Ronaldinho quality in their short passing, they can rarely unlock a deep-lying defence (ref. T&T) with a genius' touch, what they can do is shoot from distance or play the ball wide. (Where there's few to take on the fullbacks, I might add!) Up front, England has got Owen - who basically only poach in the space behind defenders (which doesn't exists against teams like T&T) - and Crouch, who is tall yet still surprisingly OKAY in the air (plus he has some deft touches, but compared to other strike forces it's not worth mentioning) - and Rooney who is your talisman in many ways, he's the one who has to do the spectacular in games like T&T. Argentina has Crespo and Saviola, two mobile strikers - one a classical goalscorer who knows all the tricks to get away from defenders, and the other a pacy striker with great first touch and decent vision. The bench illustrates the difference too imo, whilst Argentina can play Tevez, Messi, Aimar and the target man Julio Cruz - England has to count on Aaron Lennon and the unproven Walcott, plus Carrick and Downing - the first a decent long range passer aswell, the latter has nothing to offer this early in his career as far as I can tell. My point being, England doesn't have the elegance, the techniqual brilliance - which I believe is necessary unless you are very lucky - or extremely good at a different kind of football. (Which England play, admittedly it can work very well if the players are good enough - but in my opinion, unfortunately for you they are not) England has a whole midfield lineup who is good at long range passing and shooting from distance, when your opponents stick a 6'8 man and eight of his teammates in their own half England will struggle. And yes, before anyone asks, I don't particularly like the current England, I think they are the most boring team in the World Cup based on the first three matches - and I'm probably exaggerating my points without really trying to..

No, Walcott hasn't been used because Sven believes he can be a powerful weapon because no one knows him. I agree, basically no one has seen him play, at least not for England in a big match, so no one can predict his moves either.

No problem, I feel pretty sure it was Pope who got that yellow. The referee also gave Totti a silly yellow card in the 1st half, there's no doubt he was very trigger-happy in this match, but for the reds I don't think you can blame him much - he was consequently harsh at least.

Well, since 2002 there has been given severe punishment to four big clubs in Italy, Fiorentina was relegated to Serie C2 because of financial trouble, then Napoli was relegated, and Torino didn't get their promotion because of the financial trouble. On top of that, Genoa was sent down two divisions for matchfixing on only one occasion! (worse economical status has occured in other countries, without any punishment - so why is Italy always called the lenient one?) Yes, Juventus are a bigger club than all four, but these are in fact four of the biggest clubs in Italy. As I have said earlier, I think Juve's only possibility is dragging Milan into it - because of the enormous financial consequense a top two relegation would mean.

Wouldn't bet too much on Torres just yet. First of all, Spain can lose against any team at any time, and secondly he is not the "finished article" just yet in my opinion. Yes, he has all the physical qualities, but I don't see him as the Ronaldo/Zidane type to decide the important matches at this stage.

Still think you're blaming innocent people Flopsy, but as USABlue says - that debate doesn't fit in this thread. Good to hear that people behave themselves!

Okay, you have your views out in the open. I think they are rubbish, but it's an impossible debate - at least before Zigic arrives. We'll just wait and see.

Yes, I couldn't for the life of me understand why a Ghanese would have such allegiance to Israel's "cause" either, but it was merely a thank-you to his Israeli fans according to the players agent. Still find it pretty amazing to live in Israel without being aware of the situation, but these footballers..