4:03 - Mini dive by Zambrotta there. He gets up just before the 30 second rule would have kicked in, making a mandatory substitution. None of his teammates helped him up, the ref had to do it. You stay classy, Zambrotta.
7:01 - GOOOOAAAAALLL!!! Fantastic cross, Reid with a good flick on (he can get under crosses well for a defender), Smeltz the man on the spot where there are free balls as always. Cannavaro did a useless job there - did four years really change that much for him? Italy hasn't been this shocked since Mussolini said he was BFFs with Hitler.
8:50 - You have to do more than that to beat Paston. Try forcing him to make a routine clearing kick.
9:47 - Please get up Ryan. Replay shows that Reid's flick on to Smeltz made Smeltz offside. You mean a referee's assistant got a call wrong? And with FIFA's president in attendance too. Mr 'I hate replay' himself.
13:52 - Fallon gets a soft soft soft yellow card for a tiny little elbow. These Italians should play basketball and try to get a rebound from Big Zace.
19:50 - Cannavaro goes down again. Get em, Killen. Interesting fact, his name is actually 'Chillen' when he isn't playing football. Now that was a good elbow. Referee then points to the spotski down the other end for a heartstopping moment before changing the direction of his arm.
23:00 - Boos from the crowd as another Italian writhes on the floor. Fallon needs to be careful with those WMDs on his arms. If referees can award a penalty based on a replay (e.g. with Zidane in the final last time), why can't they reverse a call from a replay?
25:20 - Two good back to back defensive stops there by NZ. But we can't sit back and defend this lead - the Italians are too good and get too many chances. Keeping attacking! Quick, before we are down to 10 men.
26:15 - That ball bent the wrong way! Outrageous. Paston was statutised (like posterised, but with soccer).
27:25 - Tommy Smith with an 'I' gets goaded into giving away a flop penalty. C'mon, Paston saves these all the time.
29:23 - He makes it. Worst goal celebration ever though. Who was he pointing at? Soccer needs a baseline official to make the calls inside the box. How can the referee see anything from that terrible position?
31:35 - Chillen draws contact in a good position, he probably needs to learn to flop a little better than that for us to get cheap chances like the rest of the world. Tommy Smith looks scared of conceding another penalty now, damn.
35:38 - Shot from the crowd of a young kid just going nuts on a vuvuzela. And you thought they weren't just blowing them non-stop. Here is a handy chart of when it is appropriate to blow your vuvuzela:41:00 - Italy really is dominating territory and possession here, but it hasn't resulted in a goal yet. To be honest, the superpowers have all looked overrated in their opening games. The best looking team after two games is Argentina.
45:00 - And we head to the half tied up. The odds for a first half draw would have been pretty high. Good time wasting there by Paston to relieve some pressure at the end.
45:00 - Here are the top trending topics worldwide on twitter. Looks like we are responsible for three of them:
Forza Azzurri means go Azzurri, the nickname for the Italians.
Nieuw Zeeland is the Dutch attempt at transliteration. It seems all the TV coverage Winston Reid got in the Netherlands paid off.
Other halftime news - Martin Devlin just said De Rossi went down faster than Paris Hilton. Then he said the Italians have gone down faster than a sack of spuds. Keep 'em coming Marty.
45:00 - ESPN with the quick photo upload. Love these celebration images.
48:24 - Great defensive work by Nelsen. He is the one highly skilful player that holds together a cast of likable, but skill-deficient affable nitwits. Kind of like Dan Vettori, Steve Price with last year's Warriors, Helen Clark with the Labour government, the Williams sisters with women's tennis, Sir Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings, and Ari Gold in Entourage.
54:35 - Good passage of passing football by NZ ends. Wasted a fair bit of time. Reid has gone down with an injury - his arm must be sore from catching the ball a few possessions ago - thankfully the refs are incompetent and didn't see it.
56:23 - Half these Italians sound like they should open a self-named Italian pasta restaurant. Zambrotta's, Pazzini's, Di Natale's. I'd eat at those places.
58:40 - Fallon REALLY needs to be careful. He is probably one flop away from taking a seat. I feel soccer needs a card that is more serious than a yellow, less serious than a red - just a sinbinning. But if FIFA boss won't change any rules at all, he probably won't change that.
61:00 - Another good pic from ESPN:
64:29 - That corner by Italy was worse than 'The Losers'. Italy has used all of its subs - nervous much? I would say that Ricki has only used one because he is the iceman, but it's more likely because anyone on our bench would be quite a downgrade.
66:23 - Chris Wood absolutely monstered that little Italian guarding him on that throw in. Wood is a big guy. Let's get physical.
68:46 - Paston with pretty much the save of the whole tournament! Great stuff. Love his wry smile after, just said "is that all you got?"
70:00 - This is where Italy would put on their A-team like last year, except...they have been playing all game. Cannavaro handballs it, then apologises to the referee for some reason - is it an affront to soccer to handball it, requiring an immediate apology?
75:51 - Good to see flopping is still working. Dangerous free kick awarded by the ref. This defensive game is so, so dangerous. We are giving them so many chances near the box. Best thing about the Italians is the way they appeal to the ref. They look like mafioso saying their linguini is too salty and doesn't have enough tomato.
80:00 - Fine slow walk off by Vicelich there, wasted a good minute. Meanwhile, the commentator describes shirt-waving as a NZ 'tribal' thing. He needs to take a trip to Rotorua to see how wrong he is.
81:29 - Just about ten minutes to go. Every player should go ahead and get themselves a yellow card for timewasting.
82:15 - WOOD! He almost toppled the Italian government with that strike. What a chance! Good to see we are still attacking. It was Cannavaro again with the bad defence. Wood looks at least twice as big as him.
84:52 - Dangerous corner ruined by an Italian trying to be a hero. Has been quite a bit of that. Good save by Paston, then GREAT timewasting by Nelsen. Hopefully he is alright. Obligatory shot of ugly NZ supporters without shirts on - seems to happen every time the Warriors or Kiwis play in Sydney. Nelsen gets a yellow for his timewasting, who cares. By the time play got restarted it was 86:42 on the clock
87:55 - Paston is a goalkeeping savant! Pays to remember Italy needed a flop and a penalty to breach our defence (knock on Chris Wood).
88:50 - Goal kick time. Good opportunity for a yellow card for timewasting. Paston burns 30 seconds, but no card.
89:00 - Please, minimal stoppage time.
90:00 - FOUR MINUTES?!? This ref must be angry at Nelsen. Or the FIFA boss got on the blower - kind of like how Manchester United gets as long as they like to win the game.
90:40 - Paston again. What a game by him. News story tomorrow - [insert '82 player here] tragically dies of heart attack.
92:00 - Great substitution by Ricki, and great slow walk off by Killen. Come on, come on, come on.
93:11 - The ref looks kindly on us and gives us a relieving free kick. Only a minute to go!
93:48 - Now its us in the attacking position.
94:00 - Time is up! Call the game you bastard!
94:17 - Yes! Our free kick!
94:25: - GAME!!! Wow, what a performance. It wasn't a poor game at all by Italy, it was simply outstanding football from NZ. They couldn't pierce our defence at all. Time to go back and re-read all the previews writing us off and pointing out the quality of the Italians. The problem with branding one game the greatest sporting achievement like Glen Moss did is that five days later it could be waaaaay-trumped by the next game. This is simply crazy.
Postgame - Nelsen calls out the ref for the terrible penalty call. Good work, skip. He points out that many of the boys will feel robbed and we should have won. Imagine if we got awarded a penalty like that against Italy? The next ten minutes would have been Italians wringing their hands and shouting at the ref.
Win the game and we are in for the second round. More than about 180 nations can say this World Cup.
Smeltzy gives a very pink-faced interview. Came across sounding very Kiwi right there, lots of "mates" and "dunnos". He was confident that we can go on for the next game. Paraguay is only a poor man's Uruguay anyway. We are scoring goals and our defence is a brick wall.
Ricki refrains from calling out the refs for the penalty, but calls them out for a bunch of other stuff. Also displays a heap of confidence about the next game. Why are these interviews so short? I could listen to Ricki sing our praises until I have to go to work at 9 today.
Love the All Whites, captions to come tomorrow.
Kiwi Sports Blog's man of the match:
mvp was martin devlin ftw
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