Fabio Grosso.

Is there any other name that has spawned such playground hatred, ritual teasing and stereotype for Italian football fans since that fateful day in Kaiserslauten in 2006?

An emotionally charged fan in the early hours of that morning when I somehow dragged my bloodless corpse into the grey schoolyard - a scene I remember vividly to this day - I probably wouldn't have stopped short of wishing an eternity of physical, emotional and spiritual pain on the full back who was surely too afraid to try his luck against a belatedly covering Craig Moore as he bore down on Schwarer's goal.

He didn't admit as much in his recent comments to magazine Football +:

"It's been a long time since 2006 but I say this with as much sincerity as I possibly can. In this instance when Neill slid in, maybe I accentuated it a little bit.

"However you must remember it was the last minute of an extremely difficult game and everyone was tired. I felt the contact so I went down.

"Therefore, I say again, I didn't initiate it ... it's true that I felt the touch and didn't have the strength to go forward. Some people believe me and some don't. However for me, even after seeing the video images, it's a penalty.

"I admit that it wasn't glamorous but it wasn't a scandal."

Not a scandal? Not a scandal!? I must say that the meaning of the word scandal is not lost on me after watching the Count of Monte Cristo recently (our generation sources the film and not the book - it takes less time and generally presents us with guns, chicks, hummable soundtracks and epic quotes) but surely even poor old Edmond Dantes would scoff at Grosso's suggestion that there was nothing scandalous about his actions.

I'm sure Dantes would have been a Socceroo sympathizer if he were alive today and I'm equally sure the sight of Grosso would have stirred up painful memories of Villefort, Guy Pearce (it's much easier to remember the name of the actor than the character - another trick our generation uses) and Chateau d'If.

But Grosso's hatred among Bonapartists and his scandalous tumble are not the real crimes here: how dare he deny us the opportunity to see Craig Moore re-arrange a pair of ankles?

I mean, who wouldn't want to see ol' Craig really get stuck into someone who has the gall to wear blue boots with blue socks in front of the watching world - we can excuse the 14-year old trying to give his best impersonation of Cristiano Ronaldo in his latest Nike commercial at the weekend but really Fabio...blue?

In fact, I'd go as far to say that the perennially unfashionable Moore - who in his past life was probably one of the security guards working the velociraptor cages at Jurassic Park and a man who will never, ever, ever, ever be seen wearing a boot colour other than black - specifically waited until injury time for an opportunity to crunch a man who represented grace, style and fashion (i.e. everything Craig Moore is not on a football pitch).

Let's face it, it's why we love Craig Moore and want him at the heart of every Socceroo backline: he's continued an ancient lineage of inglorious and borderline thuggish Australian centre-backs.

Now that I cast my mind back, my depression on that grey and utterly inappropriate High School day had nothing to do with defeat, diving, cheating or refereeing.

It was the injustice of being denied the opportunity to see a true clash of football ideologies via the reinforced thighs of a Newcastle United centre-back whose penalty in the preceding match was appropriately caressed (as much as a ball is capable of being caressed by Moore's boot) into the centre of the net against Croatia - a spot traditionally reserved for spot-kick takers with a conspicuous absence of technique.

Admit it Fabio: You didn't go down to win - you went down to avoid a vintage Craig Moore challenge and therein lies one of the great World Cup scandals.