Soccer: Fallon says Italian team behaved like little girls

Rory Fallon in action against Italy's Gianluca Zambrotta. Photo / Brett Phibbs

All Whites striker Rory Fallon has launched a withering attack on the Italy team, accusing them of "diving around like little girls".

The 1.91m striker was time and again pulled up by the referee for using his elbows in aerial challenges. It earned him a booking inside 15 minutes and made it difficult for the target man to play his physical game.

But Fallon says the Italians made a meal of the challenges and conned the referee.

"The Italians were diving around like little girls. You can't really do much about it. If someone's going to ruin the game then so be it but we kept fighting."

Fallon was pulled up several times by the referee in the All Whites game against Slovakia. It was the same story in the historic 1-1 draw with Italy.

"The fans want to see a good game and they don't want to see people rolling around like girls," Fallon said. "But that's the way it goes - that's football at this present time."

The All Whites took a shock lead against the reigning world champions when Shane Smeltz poked home from a Winston Reid flick on. Italy equalised with a soft penalty when Daniele De Rossi collapsed after a slight shirt tug by Tommy Smith.

After the match Italy coach Marcello Lippi was asked whether De Rossi cheated to win the penalty.

"Are you referring to number 14 [Fallon] who immediately elbowed eight of our players?" he asked in response.

But Fallon said he never tried to use his elbows or hurt anyone.

"If I'm looking at the man and I elbow him then send me off. You watch every time that I go up for a header I'm watching the ball."

The 28-year-old Plymouth Argyle player said he had spoken to referees before the tournament and was told that as long as he was looking at the ball he would not be in trouble.

Fallon said the Italian's behaviour made the result all the sweeter.

The frustration at the perceived injustices almost boiled over with Simon Elliott remonstrating with the referee and his assistants at halftime.

Meanwhile, substitute Ben Sigmund clashed with De Rossi as the AS Roma man left the pitch at the end of the first 45 minutes.

"If you watch [the penalty] there was hardly any contact and I was just letting him know that it's cheating. It's not acceptable," Sigmund said after the game. "It's frustrating because they ended up having to cheat to try to beat us. We've shown that we're respected in this World Cup and I think they need to respect it back and I just felt that it was disrespectful to start trying to dive around all over the place when they're 1-0 down."

Sigmund said the players were looking forward to the challenge of Paraguay in the final group match.

"We have to pretty much win the game and we will be going at them. They will be a tough team to beat but we're up there with the other teams and anything can happen on our day."

Fallon, meanwhile, said he would continue to play his game and had just one wish.

"Hopefully we get an English ref."