This is the cry of the football novice—the bandwagon passenger. I am going to spend the day sighing through a number of these conversations getting relief in the thought that thereafter another word about football will not cross their lips for another four years.

It wasn't a penalty but Neill naïvely went down earlier than a cheerleader with a curfew (Neill had a superb tournament but he should know that lying down in front of a player with the ball at his foot is not an effective way of stopping him) and all Grosso had to do was to stroll up close to the body prone on the ground and then throw himself down next to it, at least eight out of ten referees would have given the penalty.

In a competition like this you are always going to get decisions like that go against you. You certainly don't have to like it. You can trudge home—as I did—fuming, aghast, not looking at the many hundreds of people milling about in the city as you pray you don't spot any celebrating Italians, but you can't pretend you were born with the right not to have such things happen to you.

Decisions were always going to go against Australia: think of the Japanese goal, think of the bizarre protection Brazil got—four times as many frees as Australia did—prompting Kewell's outburst, think of Poll's comedic genius in the Croatia game. But this is football and things went our way too: Kewell was lucky to get away with his little tizz, he was also lucky to get away with the equaliser in the next game when he was a metre offside, think also of Materazzi's soft red card this morning.

Referees get a lot of decisions wrong. It's that simple. If you happen to be an overwhelming favourite the mistakes often go in your favour. That is football. If you only notice it when it occurs in the final moments of a match in the knockout phase of the world's biggest sporting event then, I'm afraid, you've arrived late at the party.

¶ 11:00 am