1. Yes, irony. It's COMPLETELY lost on you. You talk all this crap about Spain and their diving, when the Italians are NOTORIOUS for being huge floppers, divers, whiners, etc. So suddenly you have a coach that doesn't encourage it, and you're acting all self-righteous about it??? GTOH with that crap. Spain is NO different that Italy in that regard. Sh!t, you ever seen the Chileans or the Mexicans play? Or the Eastern European countries? They put Spain to shame. But because you have a blind hatred for Spain (which is beyond immature - it's one thing to dislike a team or a country but what you've been spouting in this thread makes no sense to me as a fellow human being and a fellow Irish fan, but i digress) has you thinking that Spain is the worst. They're not. They're bad, no doubt it and it's embarrassing the way Iniesta goes down, but that's a soccer problem, not just a Spain problem. My American buddies watch soccer and laugh at all the diving, and guess what - they ain't talking about Spain.
2. Sorry to contradict what YOU said in the article that YOU brought up, but that is what the Spanish coach said. Don't get mad b/c you missed it and said he never said it.
3. The match-fixing jab (LOL at you trying to defend it - sure it never happened bro) was a playful response to your classless posts regarding Spain in this entire thread. Seriously...read what have written. This isn't a trash-talking site where we allow trolls on here ripping ND and everyone gets into a heated argument where no one will win - we ask them to go to Scout or ESPN for that.
Same thing here. You're not going to be allowed to talk sh!t the way you have been. It's one thing to discuss the games and say why you can't stand the Spanish team, but quite another to call Spaniards midgets and cry babies and tell the m to **** off and whatever other crap you're spewing. Take that sh!t to ESPN or something. Right here, we're all Irish fans. I'm half-Spanish, and I take offense to all the crap you've been talking. I won't talk crap about Italians (and I shouldn't have even said the match-fixing thing, which was tongue-in-cheek but I still shouldn't have responded in kind), and you shouldn't be talking crap about people from other countries.
Now, if you don't like that, you don't have to post on this thread anymore; you can spew your hate on an ESPN board or something. But right here...we're gonna watch the (2nd) greatest tournament in the world, we're gonna discuss it and maybe razz each other about it, but we're gonna leave the immature hate and ****-talking out of it, because we're Irish fans and we're not going to get into if over a different sport. Thanks and good luck the rest of the way...