Madhur Kapoor’s Blog

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Italy Rocked by match fixing scandal

Italian Serie A sides Juventus , Lazio , Fiorentina have been demoted to Serie B for there involvement in Italian match Fixing Scandal . AC Milan , one of the clubs under investigation will stay in Serie A but will be docked 15 points for the new season and will also be kicked out of the Champions league . All the clubs have also been kicked out of Europe .

The most serious sufferers are Juventus also known as the old lady who will be competing outside Serie A for the first time since its formation . To make matters worse , it will also be docked 30 points which will make it two seasons in the Serie B guranteed . To add insult to injury , they will also be stripped of there last two Serie A titles . The Club which has enjoyed vast success over the last few years , now faces one of the most shameful events in the clubs history .

The clubs have three days to appeal against the decision which i think they will all do but still there European journey is over as the italian Football Federation has to submit the list of European participants by 25 July . This will also throw the transfer market wide open as Juventus has got some World Class players and i dont see them playing in Serie B . There top stars include Buffon , Thuram , Pavel nedved , Ibrahimovic , Trezeguet etc. For the next few days expect the transfer market to be in full swing .

Now it will be interesting to see whether Juventus will be able to recover from this and regain the lost Glory ..

Azzurri rulez the World

To know the value of an inch , ask France who lost the World Cup . The result could have been diffrent had David Trezeguet’s penalty been an inch deeper .

The game was set for Zidane to finish his career on a high by winning his second world cup for France but it turned out to be a shameful episode in his glorious history . Zidane gave France an early lead to France through a well taken penalty but later foolishly got himself sent off for a head butt on Materazzi . But he might have won it for France had his goalbound header in the latter stages hadent been saved acrobatically by Buffon . The game was level in extra time and Italy calmly went on to win 5-3 on penalties .

But Credit should be given to Italy who have been terrific in this tournament whether from Defensive point of view or Offensive . Cannavaro was again instrumental in the win as he cut out various France attacks . Italians played well in the first half and could have taken the lead if Toni’s effort wouldnt have hit the crossbar . In the 2nd half we saw a better of France team with Thierry Henry being the danger man and creating oppurtunities . But Italy hung on during the extra time and went on to win on penalties by scoring all five .

Anyways it was a great final to round off an exciting World Cup but it will be remembered with the incident of Zidane . It was such a sad end to his illustrious career -sent from the World’s Biggest stage in shame and down to retirement .

Golden Boot Winner : Miroslav Klose

Golden Ball Winner : Zinedine Zidane