Pajiba

I'm not really into football, but I did watch the England match on Friday. I wish I hadn't. God it was dull. And we really didn't look like we knew what we were doing at all. I was kinda hoping Algeria would score, just so something would happen. They need to sort themselves out sharpish. And stop being such whiners.

It's customary for Australians to poke fun at our Trans Tasman neighbors but on this occasion I just can't muster it. A nation with 25 professional footballers rode their luck and pulled through against a super power. Great work NZ, enjoy your ride however long it lasts. Neither of us have long left in the tournament, but both have done better than I expected 4-0 flogging or not.

Of the genuine threats, I can't go past Argentina. They are as mad as their coach, but damn they are entertaining to watch.

The Daily Mail has a great article on the attempted coup by John Terry. God I hate that man.

John Terry's failed coup

Love how it's different this year, but I'm bummed my home team Italy is doing so poorly. It's not over yet, obviously. France is so pathetic these days!

1) Wayne Rooney is an ass, and I really don't understand why ANYONE would think he's all that
2) the whole thing has really turned around and it's been a long string of utterly fun, insane games.
3) that being said some of the referees have gone INSANE.
4) DON'T SAY THAT ABOUT MEXICO. Grr. Sorry, sorry. I just hate them.
5) while the refereeing has been pretty awful in spots, instant replay is a stupid fucking idea that doesn't belong anywhere near this sport. I say just train these guys better and screen the ones who will be participating in the WC a little better--like the dude from Guatemala who reffed the Italy game. The guy was clearly out of his league and seemed to much in awe of the big players to call anything on them. He was incompetent beyond belief.
6)OUCH, North Korea. OUCH.

Let's go Chile! Let's go Honduras!

Not interested in soccer nitty gritty BUT: Best headline ever?

It's not so much that the U.S. goal was disallowed for bad call, it's that WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE CALL WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!! The ref refuses to clarify whether it was offsides, a penalty on an arbitrary U.S. player, or if his family was being held hostage by Slovenian Superfans forcing him to preserve their point. Bad refs exist in all sports, but when your talking about a 90 minute game in which you're lucky to get 1 or 2 goals, let alone more, a bad soccer ref (or a good ref having a bad day) really can cost a team the game.

Speaking of, how about that penalty gift for Italy yesterday?!?!?! What a joke. Easily as farcical as the U.S. call or the second yellow on Kaka. Completely embarrassing for FIFA. Again. And again. And again. Maybe someday they'll do something to encourage good refereeing other than a "poor" rating. Oooh, feel the burn!

FIFA Board Member #1: "Zyu argh a naughty, naughty ref! I rate zoor performanze viss a POOR!"

FIFA Board Member #2: "I concur! I can't in good conscience give you a BELOW AVERAGE, good sir. POOR!"

FIFA Board Member #3: "Ching chong, ding dong. POO-AH!"

FIFA Board Member #4: "I am above all zees zhudjing and argh-ew-ing! Viva la '98!"

FIFA Board Member #5: "Yeahthatwasbadyoufucker!!! Letsfuckingkillhim??? Heeheeheeheehee!"

FIFA Board Member #2: "I say, who invited the Colombian representative? Tsk, tsk! The organizer of this meeting also gets a POOR for letting in the ruffians!"

FIFA Board Member #6: "You're all a buncha dicks. I'm going back to Texas."

Are you guys watching the Chile-Switz game? IT'S INSANE.

This ref is completely yellow-card crazy. Jeebus. DUDE BARELY TOUCH HIM WHAT THE FUCK?!

I don't even bother watching the England games - it's all too depressing. I have decided that I am now an honorary citizen of Portugal.
Seriously though, they should pay the English players per goal, and let the WAGs give the half-time talk. No goals after 45 minutes? The players will come back on the field with acrylic nail-marks across their faces as 'encouragement' to start earning.

Wow... these guys flop just as over-dramatically bad as NBA players.

Oops. That wasn't the goalie.

My bad.

That last paragraph? Agree. 100% agree. What is the point with having all those other officials out there? Use them, damnit!

Wow that was a nice game. Chile almost gave me a heart attack.

That's a pretty good idea, zito. If they can't punish during games, do it after. And all the proof you need is in the video--specially nowadays when you can get something incredibly detailed from 4 or 5 different angles.

The nongoal in the U.S. game reminds me that it's hard to take seriously a sport that has a major game-rigging scandal at least once a year. I have to assume somebody got paid off. Say what you want about baseball being slow and out of touch, but there has never been (to my knowledge; someone will prove me wrong, I'm sure) a similar scandal involving a major-league umpire. They blow calls from time to time, but when they do, never EVER is the first thought that comes to mind: This game is fixed.

Nor do I think NBA games are fixed, even though they DID have a ref on the take once.

BTW, I want to ask soccer fans: I watched that nongoal several times and ... is there always that much out-and-out bear-hugging and headlocking going on around the net? It looked like WWF.

"Can't use your hands"? I call shenanigans.

That soccer thing is still going on?

It's rather amazing that England, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain will all need to win their final games to be assured a place in the knockout round.

Here's a rather nice article on the state of England right now:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1288194/WORLD-CUP-2010-Its-mutiny-John-Terry-fails-plot-undermine-Fabio-Capello.html

I am always excited for World Cup when it starts. However, by the end of the first round, I remember why I don't like soccer. It is a sport of liars and cheats. Worst of all, no one in FIFA authority really seems to care. For that matter, most of the fans don't care and try to defend this abhorrent behavior by saying, "Oh, it is just a part of the game." By the end of the World Cup, I am so sick of "simulation" by the players I want everyone to get sent to the locker rooms for unsportsmanlike behavior, including the refs. Beautiful game my ass. It is everything we try to teach our kids not to do in sports.

androstarr, when people say it is part of the game, they're not saying it is right, or that it is cool. It's one of the bad parts of the game, but it is part of the game, because the rules have breaches, and as long as the game is popular that way, FIFA will be afraid of changing it and making it a boring mechanized sport, like many others.

We sometimes joke about it, specially when it benefits our team (like everybody in Brazil is joking today about Luís Fabiano's handball) but that doesn't mean we like it, it's just jokes, when people seriously discuss about it, everybody is against the simulations and stuff like that. And players that do that are forever tainted, like Henry will be, and Maradona is.

Anyway, despite the attention it gets from the media, I don't think simulations and ref mistakes make such defining results, and don't take away the beauty of the game. I do think they should do something about it, like what I mentioned in my other comment, but I don't think that it takes away the fun of the game in any way.

And whoever said something about game-rigging, in major events like the World Cup that's really improbable. Simply because it is too important for the careers of refs and players, in a way that it wouldn't be lucrative to jeopardize it for the money involved in a rigging scheme. If a player gives a bad performance on a World Cup, that will have a high cost on his career. If a referee makes obvious mistakes, his career will also be in danger. I may be wrong, of course, maybe the money involved is larger than I imagine, but all I see in the games are pretty understandable mistakes, if you imagine yourself in the position of the ref, watching the game from the field, in the heat of the game, with 50.000 vuvuzelas screaming and 22 players trying to get you to believe their version of what's happened.

zito,

A referee can simply rule that a goal wasn't a goal, for no reason anyone can see, and doesn't even have to explain what rule was broken for several days, if at all?

Nope, don't see anything there that screams, "Offer me a bribe!"

Wow... these guys flop just as over-dramatically bad as NBA players.

Where do you think NBA players learned it?

The foreign players are the worst floppers in the NBA (Kirilenko, Scola, Gasol, Oberto, etc.)

It's not a coincidence that most Europeans and South Americans grow up playing soccer.

Yeah, Spain is really not all that. Oh, beating Honduras?

LIKE THAT'S HARD.

*sob*

@ zito

Zito that is the most coherent and well thought out defense of international football I have ever heard. Kudos sir/ma'am! I am sure I will watch the end of the Word Cup while yelling angrily at the television and making fun of grown men who roll around on the ground feigning injury. Then I will promptly ignore the entire sport for another 4 years, hoping things will improve in the interim.

BREAKING NEWS: Domenech has now announced that some of the French team don't want to play the final group game against South Africa. Sarkozy has dispatched his Minister of Sport to Jo'burg try to calm the situation down. A few comments:

1) Wouldn't Sarkozy be better off sending Carla Bruni to cajole the players into fulfilling their team obligations?

2) I really don't care what the French do off the pitch: they shouldn't even be in South Africa as far as I'm concerned, but holy shit! to refuse to play your final game against your hosts? That's really downright rude.

3) For those of you a little weak on your ancient Gaelic history, the Irish had a custom whereby if someone crossed you, you went up to the highest possible mound nearby, picked up a stone in each hand and raised them to the sky and uttered a curse on your enemy.
The only way to remove the curse is for your enemy to take up a seat to the left of the main door of your residence and fast until you agree to remove the curse. Expect to see a lot of skinny Frenchmen sitting outside the Irish embassy in Paris.

As Donovan kicks the ball, and the ball travels to the area, the referee points to the other side of the field, which means he saw a foul inside the area, commited by a USA player. He does that when the ball is still far away from the goal.

where? on who? it was never explained.

Where do you think NBA players learned it?

The foreign players are the worst floppers in the NBA (Kirilenko, Scola, Gasol, Oberto, etc.)

can't forget about Vlade Divac. he was like the Rosa Parks of floppers.

The Cup started slowly (too many teams afraid of losing) but it is getting better as teams require all three points to make it past the group stage. It seems to me that most of the players in the powerhouse countries started quite tired and psychologically flat. Now that they have the incentive of impending elimination and national shame staring them in the face, they are coming alive. Germany and Italy will go through. They always do. England will win and go through as well. Spain will make it. France doesn't belong at the Cup this time, so it's a bit of poetic justice that they are melting as they are.

The days of the easy games are long gone. The world market of players ensures that most play outside of their native land in European leagues where competition is of the highest caliber (look at Mexico's roster, is it a surprise that they are doing so well now that their core players earn their keep in European clubs?) With the exception of North Korea and New Zealand, there aren't any modest teams left. Hence the first few rounds looking a bit screwy. In the end, the traditional powerhouses will prevail a la March Madness.

Couple of things to bring football to the 21st century:
- no more running clock. When play stops, so should the clock. This will do away with all the silliness toward the end of the game (players requiring treatment in the middle of the field, the inevitable last minute substitution that takes 2 minutes to complete, the ridiculous adding of time by refs at game's end, etc.) 35 minutes of real playing time will take care of that.
- penalizing players that get yellow cards during the game they get them in. Sit the offender down for 10 minutes and give the other team the chance to take advantage of the situation.
- review game film after every game and suspend players who fake fouls or otherwise act the clown to gain advantage during the game. Better yet, have a ref off the field monitor the game live on camera and report down to the ref on the field. Doesn't work? Ask rugby league and rugby union, works for them.
- finally, let's change the point scoring to incentivize scoring goals. Ties get no points, wins with up to 2 goals difference get 2 points, each goal over 2 gets 1 point (or something like this, I haven't worked out the math.)

zito,

I see the black man in yellow point back up the field at approximately the time the ball enters the goal. So you're saying the referee had eyes in the back of his head?