You play for your home nation, not the nation you play your regular club football in.

If the latter were true, then the whole balance of world football would be tipped as football is vastly intertwined these days. Most of the finest players in Scotland and England are foreign imports.

Quote: Original post by Grimunlock

Quote: Original post by phantom
He doesn't play for another country; he plays for a club in spain.

These are not the same things.

Sure he does. It's a Spanish Club. A Spanish Club in Spain. A Spanish Club, in Spain, that all of the Spanish citizens root and cheer for, who they call "their team".

Yes, but he doesn't play 'for spain' in plays IN spain for a club which happens to be Spanish.

And the supporters support THE CLUB not the player. So where the player is from doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

It's the same with NBA players. Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobily, Dirk Nowitzki play on NBA Teams but they play for their national team on FIBA World Cups and Olympics games (Spain, Argentina and Germany respectively).

Quote: Original post by Grimunlock

Quote: Original post by phantom
He doesn't play for another country; he plays for a club in spain.

These are not the same things.

Sure he does. It's a Spanish Club. A Spanish Club in Spain. A Spanish Club, in Spain, that all of the Spanish citizens root and cheer for, who they call "their team".

This isn't an isolated case. Most players in this championship play for clubs that are not in their original country.

Think of it as Goku fighting Krillin in a tournament. They are friends but they beat each other's ass for the sake of fighting.

Quote: Original post by Grimunlock
Sure he does. It's a Spanish Club. A Spanish Club in Spain. A Spanish Club, in Spain, that all of the Spanish citizens root and cheer for, who they call "their team".

Playing for Real Madrid is a job. He's no different than an American banker working for the Royal Bank of Scotland in Glasgow. The fact that "most" Spaniards support Real Madrid is about as relevant as the American banker observing that most of RBS' customers are Scottish. Ronaldo then playing for his country, Portugal, is like that American banker being in the Marine Reserves or National Guard and reporting to an American base one weekend a month.

This is how the world works. As SergioJdelos points out, this is the case in all sports in every country. (The only reason you don't see a bunch of foreign players in the NFL is because virtually nobody else plays American rules football.) MLB is filled with Dominicanos and Cubanos. The Italian, Greek and Russian basketball leagues have a bunch of Americans in them. Aussie rules football has Brits playing there, and British rugby has folks from Oz. International football is simply the most international of all sports. The British Premiere League has the highest number and proportion of international players (prior to Real Madrid, Ronaldo played for Manchester United), followed by the Italian, German, Spanish and French leagues in uncertain order.

Spain-Portugal was a good game. Excellent pace and flow, very few discontinuations. It could have gone either way, but Spain was definitely the aggressor and had Portugal in a defensive stance for much of the game. Portugal had some good chances but couldn't convert. Ball don't lie.

Felt bad for Japan, losing on penalties. Them's the breaks, though.

We're out. I think our coach never should have brought Ricardo Costa on, everyone was shocked he was even in the world cup to begin with. Anyway, congratulations to Spain who can really pass the ball around.

Also, the Cristiano Ronaldo thing is clearly a non-issue: he may play for Real Madrid but he rarely plays for Portugal.

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Any thoughts on FIFA's about face re goal-line technology this morning? All I can think is lulz.

They promised to review the matter in July. If FIFA doesn't adjust to present technological capabilities, then the 2012 Olympics organizers should. Goal line technology is an no brainer, but if the games are streamed live over iphones, why can't refs review plays during injury stoppage time? There are four officials, so why not have a sideline judge use an iphone to review the play when a player is seriously injured and getting hauled off on a stretcher? And if an iphone screen is too small for that, put a fifth official in the television control room reviewing play throughout the game.

Personally I think the technology should be used in 3 situations;
1) Goals to check if the ball has crossed the line. I'm not sure about offside goal checks however.. maybe.
2) Confirmations in red card situations or when the ref isn't 100% sure (like the 3rd Umpire in Cricket who can be asked to judge LBWs.. and I've just lost all the Americans in the thread with that example haven't I? [grin])
3) Off the ball incidents where one player injures another out of the refs line of sight

My biggest 'fear' if you will with technology introduction beyond that is that it will start breaking up play too much. Cleaning up the game and removing some of the choices which are seen as a problem would make it worth while however, just as long as they can't challenge EVERY offside choice or foul for example; somethings should be left humanised as it were.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
They promised to review the matter in July.

I'm mostly amused by the about face and the embarrassment they've suffered in view of the obvious disparity between the technology viewers at home - and in the stadium - have access to and what refs can use. The case when the stadium replay showed the goal as obviously in while the ref had already made an on-field decision was particularly needling.

Quote: Original post by phantom
Personally I think the technology should be used in 3 situations...

It should definitely be used for goal-line situations, and because of the speed of the game it should probably be something that is fully automatic and simply notifies the referee - who can then decide to overrule it, leaving us all the joys of railing at refs! [smile]

As for any other situations, I think it should only be invoked in natural stoppages of play - carding, injury - and have a time limit for review so as not to break play up too much. We don't want tv timeouts spreading from the current American (gridiron) game back to the beautiful game. I also think that coaches should have a limited number of "challenges" for egregious rulings, subject to the same time constraint and at the risk of losing a substitution - that is, you lose one substitution if the challenge is ruled against you (naturally limiting coaches to 3 challenges).