I agree when there's a doubt, let it go. I just heard there was TWO so I was like :(

Also, germany cant seem to get a break. They give germany a yellow card for an accidental yellow card but let uruguay slide on a much more blatant hand ball (the first wasnt, but then he slapped it AGAIN edit: CONSISTENCY IS A MUST). Oh well, germany's got time!


EDIT: HAHAHAHA THE CHEATERS LOST. I loved how the crowd booed suarez constantly.

[Edited by - Crazyfool on July 10, 2010 3:19:12 PM]

Quote: Original post by LessBread
@AndyPandyV2, Spain plays what I call "keep away" style. They seek to dominate possession of the ball and then pound away with attacks until they finally succeed. Most teams respond by hardening their defense to withstand the onslaught and then counterattack when they get the chance. It works about one tenth of the time. Only teams skilled at counterattack succeed against Spain. The Netherlands can succeed but only if their defense plays perfectly.

Yep, and that's what the game looks like so far, IMO. Barring a defensive brain fart by Spain or a lucky break for Netherlands, I see Spain winning its first world cup by a 1-0 or 2-1 margin.

5 yellow cards in the first 30 minutes?! That last one should have been a red, though.

iniesta (sp?) is such a diver and has successfully got a red card for the dutch. not to mention he should have got a red card himself for pushing a dutch player after a play was over... this makes me sad :( i do love pique though, he is a BEAST.

edit: HAHA this is just sad, i remember this referee being much better. giving a goal kick on probably the most obvious corner in the entire world cup? giving a red card because iniesta is a pro-diver?

This. Sucks.

Viva España :).

I called it.

@Crazyfool: I believe the red was the result of a second yellow. Calling Iniesta a diver sounds wrong; he's known for not even responding to challenges, such that his reaction to an earlier challenge (knocking the opponent down) was surprising.

The goal kick was a surprising call, but them's the breaks. Overall I thought the ref was excellent, especially his use of yellow cards to punish behavioral and sportsmanship violations. No ref will get every call right, so you shrug off the human errors (provided they're not egregious and not trivially reviewable without disrupting the game's flow) and just play the game.

What's with the Emirates Air hostesses during the World Cup presentation? Corporate sponsorship gone mad?

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
I called it.

@Crazyfool: I believe the red was the result of a second yellow. Calling Iniesta a diver sounds wrong; he's known for not even responding to challenges, such that his reaction to an earlier challenge (knocking the opponent down) was surprising.

The goal kick was a surprising call, but them's the breaks. Overall I thought the ref was excellent, especially his use of yellow cards to punish behavioral and sportsmanship violations. No ref will get every call right, so you shrug off the human errors (provided they're not egregious and not trivially reviewable without disrupting the game's flow) and just play the game.

What's with the Emirates Air hostesses during the World Cup presentation? Corporate sponsorship gone mad?

Did you watch the same game I did? I can point out two occurrences of him diving where there is undeniable proof he was not touched (on replay, so I'm not saying the ref intentionally made a bad call). TWO times that i can show you in a single game is a pretty damn good case for him being a diver. After his first dive, he gets up and pushes a dutch player when the play had moved on (about 10-15 seconds late). So in closing, Spain is tainted in my mind because of a few bad players. This may not matter, but I think it'll eventually catch up with them/him like Cristiano Ronaldo. Oh well, both teams played their best, and spain might have still won, but its frustrating to see a ref make so many mistakes towards one side.

Edit: and i know the red was a result of two yellows, the first was such a terrible display of referee-ing. The second yellow (and then red) was probably a bad angle, but definitely a bad call. The first yellow was like, spain guy fell (villa), rolled around, play went on, spain kicked it out, dutchman got a yellow card, dutch throw in. No call, no warning, no nothing. He noticed villa was "hurt", so he was like "oh I have to throw another yellow around just for kicks"

@Crazyfool: Let's start with the David Villa situation. Villa was tackled illegally by a Dutch player, but the referee didn't see it. Seeing their teammate down, once the Spain regained possession they kicked it out of bounds to stop play. The ref consulted with the linesman before issuing the yellow card. The Dutch then kicked the ball back to the Spainiards as fair play.

Next, the "first" Iniesta situation you cite. Iniesta was tackled by two players in a manner he felt was unfair, this during the early part of the game while the Dutch were trying to use aggression to counter Spain's superior skill (thus 5 yellow cards during the first 30 minutes, and a record obliterating 14 cards for the game - the previous record was 7, I believe). He retaliated by hip-checking one of the players, and the foul was called on him. For you to call that a "dive" is ludicrous.

Edit: The red card play didn't really deserve a booking, but I consider it karma for this play only getting a yellow card.

Unless you can provide video evidence to support your specific interpretation of events, I'm going to have to simply call you wrong on this.

The referee was in a difficult place. Once you start awarding lots of free kicks and yellow cards, players (even normally more honest ones) will start going down a *lot* easier. Overall, I think while individual calls might not be correct, the number of cards awarded to each team was indicative of their relative amounts of foul play.

In contrast, Spains previous game against Germany stood out for me because the referee was so uninvolved in the match, there were a handful of free kicks and no cards in the game, IIRC. That game was far nicer to watch.

It was a disappointing match, I'm glad Spain won but it was so messy it was hardly a fitting finish for the World Cup Final.