penalties can and do decide footy games too- I can think of at least a couple of Bledisloe Cup matches decided in the last moment by a penalty (think John Eales knocking over that goal especially)
however those decisions were not as ordinary as the one last night
it's just so frustrating, having watched the video a couple of times that Grosso doesn't even attempt to make any effort to stay on his feet, in fact quite the opposite. he did EVERYTHING he could to go to ground, but hey, it's soccer. that's what you do.
had Neill stayed on his feet, made the tackle and booted it away and the game went to extra time I think the Aussies would have been well and truly in the box seat. the Italians would have been tired, frustrated, and we still had two subs to use.
Hiddink would have taken off Wilkshire (who made one or two good tackles but really only proved he's an English third division player
) at the break and brought on Kennedy to give some more height up front. Probably with maybe ten to go, if scores were still level he'd take off probably Culina and bring Thompson on, then move to a 3-2-5 formation
and then Totti probably would have banged in a thirty yard wonder goal off a counter attack with a minute to go anyway