Word: defeatingly
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...Blame Game By DONALD MACINTYRE Seoul Virtually the only person italian officials did not blame for their team's shock defeat by South Korea was Osama bin Laden. Italy, the country that invented vendetta, wasn't content merely to point fingers, either. Someone had to take the fall. The victim: Ahn Jung Hwan, who scored the golden goal for Korea that knocked Italy out of the Cup. Prior to his hometown heroics, Ahn was an unremarkable player for Perugia in Italy's Serie A league. Perugia president Luciano Gaucci last week booted Ahn off the team. "I have no intention...
...this year's Cup. No surprise, considering this was the country's first time in the finals. But fans back home are whispering that the team wasn't merely incompetent. Rumor has it that players, including star defender Fan Zhiyi, threw the match against Costa Rica, a 2-0 defeat, to make a little cash. A boom in illegal sports gambling has tainted China's soccer league, which uncovered a slew of crooked referees and players fixing games last year. But Fan adamantly denies any wrongdoing, and soccer pundits speculate that Chinese authorities may be encouraging the controversy to discredit...
...only thing that could spoil Korea's party now is a refereeing controversy that has tainted Korea's victories over Italy and Spain. During the latter match, a potential game-winning Spanish goal was disallowed over a debatable offside call. But even if the team goes down to defeat at the hands of Germany in the semifinals, few Koreans will be complaining. "I don't know if we have felt like this since we gained independence from Japan," said Hahn Juho, a lawyer in Seoul, as he joined the after-game jubilation. No matter what happens in the last stages...
...South Korea broke through, not only going toe-to-toe against some of the world's best footballers, but doing so with the aggression of the super-confident. No, they do not yet have a famous war cry, like France's "Allez!" But the French are going home in defeat, along with the fallen warriors of Argentina. Are the tournament's co-hosts merely cashing in on home-field advantage? Perhaps, but the expectations of the giddy, roaring crowds that have packed stadiums in Seoul and Tokyo are a burden and not just a boon. Luck has little...
...fitting that the most elegant euphemism for sporting failure was invented by the English. You used to hear it all the time on BBC radio, when an England side was beaten, at Wembley or Twickenham or Lord's; at the final whistle, or wicket, a commentator would put the defeat down to "the glorious uncertainty of the game...