Italy, Croatia, France, Argentina, Mexico, Sweden, Poland, Portugal and Denmark are all good teams -- they just lost.
Silly me, I though they were still in it.How could you forget the best team of them all- Ireland?
Angry Italy blame 'conspiracy'
Simon Evans
CHONAN, South Korea (Reuters) - Any team would be angry if they had been eliminated from the World Cup like Italy were against South Korea.
Italy's Giovanni Trapattoni and Francesco Totti (Reuters)
But surely no other team, especially if they were former world champions and one of the soccer powers of Europe, would have behaved with such uncontrolled fury as Italy have in the past 24 hours.
Players, press, officials and the public are seriously suggesting that there was a plot involving the referee to get rid of Italy, one of the most popular teams at the World Cup and one of the few remaining 'elite' teams.
'It was a scandal. The truth is he (the referee) had his mind set against us - this was a desired elimination,' said striker Francesco Totti, sent off in extra time in Korea's 2-1 win.
'By who? I don't know - there are things greater than me but the feeling is that they wanted us out.'
The history of the World Cup, like any other sporting competition, is littered with controversy and recriminations, and referees on the global stage are as capable of error as anywhere else.
The Italians had five goals disallowed in three matches and a series of questionable decisions go against them before Tuesday's second round match against co-hosts South Korea.
Totti was controversially dismissed and what appeared a very tight offside decision went against them, both in extra time, before Italy lost on a golden goal to the co-hosts.
UNDERSTANDABLE ANGUISH
But what some Italians have suggested as an explanation for Ecuadorean referee Byron Moreno's performance goes beyond the understandable anguish of a team that feel, with some justification, they were unlucky to be eliminated.
'The referee was a disgrace, absolutely scandalous. I've never seen a game like it. It seemed as if they just sat around a table and decided to throw us out,' Franco Frattini, Italy's minister for public offices, said.
Not too much should be read into the words of a politician watching the game on television in Rome but even the head of the Italian Football Federation's delegation - the country's senior soccer diplomat - was suggesting underhand practice.
'Korea is a powerful country. It's clear that they would have done something,' he said on Italian state television, without elaborating. 'I've never in my life seen refereeing that bad.'
In soccer terms Korea is not a powerful country while Italy most certainly is, being home to one of the sport's most famous leagues and many of its greatest players.
Italy coach Giovanni Trapattoni also offered a strange explanation for his team's exit.
'Yesterday after Japan were eliminated I said that it would be tough that we had an additional opposition. I am not talking about a plot but about an additional opposition,' said Trapattoni.
There is more than just bitterness behind such conspiracy theories - the reaction of the Italians is a reflection of a mindset that is firmly established in their own domestic league.
'He was a phenomenon only when he played against Italy. I am a nationalist and I regard such behaviour not only as an affront to Italian pride but also an offence to a country which two years ago opened its doors to him,' Gaucci was quoted as saying.
'I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian soccer.'