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A Chinese most popular sports commentator sparked a huge debate as he shouted "Long Live Italy" and "I don't like Australia soccer team" after Italy oust Australia with a last one minute penalty shot to reach the World Cup quarter-finals early Monday. (See Chinese sports host apologizes for losing cool )
Huang Jianxiang, a state-run China Central Television (CCTV) sportscaster, lost his temper as Francesco Totti of Italy scored a penalty with one minute remaining to give Italy a 1-0 win over Australia in the second round.

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The 38-year-old shouted himself hoarse after Italian defender Fabio Grosso tripped over Australia's Lucas Neill's challenge. As Francesco Totti blasted home the penalty, Huang shrieked in excitement.
"Extremed and crazy as he is, Huang is not qualified to be a soccer show commentator of a national broadcaster," a netizen named Zuotao Youmai aired view on sina.com, one of China's top portal websites.
"Huang totally throws out his status as a professional sports commentator, instead, he acts like a fan off his trolley to vent personal disgust with a team," another netizen Yangyu commented on sina.com forum.
Known Chinese portals websites like yahoo.com and sohu.com's online forums were flooded with messages on Huang's outburst all day Tuesday. The percentage of netizens who blasted Huang and backed him seems to be "50-50".
A "Quick Vote" on sina.com reveals over 33 percent of web surfers says Huang's passionate paean to Italian football is ill considered; 13 percent hold part of his wordings are inappropriate.
"Huang went too far," said an identified surfer of sina's chat room."He shouldn't have praised the bad-playing Italian team and jeered at a brave squad, defeated though."
"Huang can bring out as much of his personality as necessary to make him stand out among other commentators, it is encouraging," a netizen Yellow Hat writes on sina online forum, "but saying 'I don't like Australia' is something audiences can't understand."
However, another group of netizens praised Huang's way of commentary as breaking with tradition. The vote run by sina.com shows nearly 50 percent think Huang's commentary is full of passion.
A netizen named Long Fire told to chinadaily.com reporter that Huang makes full use of simple and direct language to describe what had happened on the pitch.
"All of us should share the passion Huang brought in," he said, "He shouted himself hoarse though, he is full of wisdom and excitement from head to toe."
"The World Cup itself is a big carnival, why don't we indulge ourselves in the quadrennial soccer party with him?"
"Definitely it was an undisputed penalty," shouted Huang in the last minute of the game.
"Penalty! Penalty! Penalty!" he screamed. "Grosso's done it, Grosso's done it!"
"Great Italian left back! Grosso succeeded in the long history and tradition of Italian soccer! He is not fighting alone at the moment!" he continued.
"Totti! He is about to take the shot! He shoulders the expectations of the whole world!"
"Goooooal! Game over! Italy win! Beat the Australians!" he shouted, his voice now breaking. "They do not fall in front of Hiddink again, who led South Korea to knock out Italy in the 2002 World Cup!"
"Italy the great! Left back the great! Happy birthday to Maldini! Forza Italia! Long live Italy!"
Huang then turned to the Socceroos and yelled,"Go home! Go home! But they don't need to fly back to Australia. It's too far away. Most of them live in Europe anyway. Bye-bye!"
Huang was not repentant for his controversial comments in the satellite linkup with the Beijing live program after match.
"I am a human being, not a machine, and I can't be impartial all the time," he explained while being interviewed by Xinhua News Agency.
"Australia reminded me of a lousy team which eliminated China in the 1981 World Cup qualifiers. Australia is just like New Zealand team that beat us in 1981," he explained.
"It (Australia) is full of neutralized Australians who play and live in Britain. I don't care about the Australian team and don't want to see Australia have good results."
"Australia (which has joined the Asian Football Confederation) will fight for an Asian World Cup berth and it may not be good enough to contend with South Korea and Japan. But it will very likely take advantage of the Chinese team. So I don't like it." Huang told to Xinhua News Agency.
Beijing newsroom host Zhang Bin tried to interrupt Huang to avoid further damage, but Huang kept going on until the linkup was cut.
Zhang then tried to switch the conversation to a lighter subject,praising the hard-fighting Australians and head coach Hiddink for the rest of the program.
It wasn't the first time a Chinese sportscaster got carried away covering the sport. In 2002, it said, CCTV hostess Sheng Bin stunned an audience of millions as she openly wept at Argentina's early exit.
China's soccer media is always as racy as its English and German counterparts; despite the Chinese soccer team is not qualified to compete this time.
Since the nation launched a professional soccer league in 1994, China's media began broadcasting English and Italian soccer tournaments on television.
Editor: Donald |