World Cup 2010

[oafc0000]

FFS!

Townsend: "and we'll see another great decision from the linesman"

Southgate: "um, yeah but technically he's offside"

Townsend: "nah"

Southgate: "well yeah, his foots out, letter of the law it's offside"

Townsend: "ah, but the linesman can't see that from 25 yards"

[ampersand]

Did anyone else find tyldeslys constant moaning about van bommel not getting a yellow card very irritating?

[Cardboard Box City]

Yet it's getting better at all levels, of this there's absolutely no doubt.

Edited July 6, 2010 by Cardboard Box City

[eFestivals]

Justice.

Is it wrong for me to want Germany to win tonight?

IMO, they've easily been the team of the tournament, the only team that looks competent with every aspect of the game. I reckon we'll get a much better footballing final from Holland vs Germany than we will from Holland vs Spain.

[Steve P]

Very pleased for Holland. I wish I could afford a trip to Amsterdam now this Sunday, should be quite a party

[ampersand]

IMO, they've easily been the team of the tournament, the only team that looks competent with every aspect of the game. I reckon we'll get a much better footballing final from Holland vs Germany than we will from Holland vs Spain.

[oafc0000]

Justice.

Is it wrong for me to want Germany to win tonight?

IMO, they've easily been the team of the tournament, the only team that looks competent with every aspect of the game. I reckon we'll get a much better footballing final from Holland vs Germany than we will from Holland vs Spain.

[eFestivals]

Who to? Examples of these things at all levels would be useful.

Naming referees as examples with relevant analysis might be more convincing than unqualifiable statements.

Where would you like to start? Keith Hackett's well received red card in a match involving a certain London club? Uriah Rennie sending Alan Shearer off for heading the ball against Villa? The umpa lumpa being the umpa lumpa? (I personally had a lot of time for him - the nickname just stuck).

I've seen the best 20 or so referee's in the country in the flesh on more than one occasion, so if you would like to start analysing them as to why they are better than ever and we should be grateful and unconcerned as to the standard in this country, I'd be interested to hear your individual reasoning as to their qualities, or the qualities of the current elite list of referees as a whole.

Your own opinion is no less unquantifiable - tho based on many less years observations.

Refs sometimes get it wrong and will always get it wrong sometimes. That's human nature. Saying "I've seen so-and-so get this wrong, and get that wrong" means nothing for a consideration of whether reffing is better now than in the past.

But nowadays there's professional refs, there's a professional refs body to over-see them, and there's three refs and not just one.

While not all levels have those professional refs, the professionalism at the top end is impacting on the standards right down the chain. It's no longer the case that a ref gets qualified and then is left reffing games with almost no supervision, training, and assessment from the point of getting qualified. I happened to go to school with the guy who was the youngest qualified ref in the country at the time (late 70s), and whose dad was also ref. He got his qualie, then was pretty much left to get on with it for years without supervision.

I also worked for several years in the late 80s/early 90s with a ref who sometimes did top-level games (Mike Topping, feel free to look him up of you like) who one year was in the MotD titles (doing a pre-match check of the goal net at Chelsea for holes - he was linesman for that match), and he commented to me several times about how training and assessment was being continually stepped up, to the point that the time impact of that was causing him to consider giving it up.

Why has the quality of refs at the WC been commented on as being better than Prem refs? One reason is certainly the TV coverage, which has had far fewer replays of incidents than is the case with the Prem, so that there's been far fewer opportunities to pick up on any mistakes. This gets to show that the impression we get of refs isn't so much based on what they do, but on what we get to see.

[eFestivals]

f**king awful stuff isn't it....

when an ex-player who's played at the highest levels can't get it right all the time when he has access to endless replays, the expectations of refs from the likes of CBC get to be shown as waaaay beyond realistic.

Refs get it wrong sometimes and always will. Expecting perfection is a waste of time.

[ampersand]

Expecting perfection is a waste of time.

[eFestivals]

yet you expect perfect fairplay from players

No, I'm not expecting perfection, there'll always be the likes of mis-timed tackles. I'm wanting no deliberate cheating.

But anyway, having seen it again last night, oaf's view that the ball would have hit Suarez's face is laughable. If he'd wanted to avoid the ball hitting his face he only needed to have moved a little bit left (if he actually needed to avoid it at all), and that would have been the 'instinctive' reaction - instead he moved his body massively to the right, and his arms/hands were extended further to the right than his face was. There is no doubt about it, it would have been a goal without his cheating.

And just going back on yesterday's discussion briefly, the reason why I disliked that so much is that the punishment was less than the crime. When someone is hacked down in the box, it's never a certain goal before that happens, so a penalty - where the taker has a greater chance of scoring than not - is a fair punishment, with the punishment greater than the crime. For that handball on the line, the punishment was lesser than the crime - the crime stopped a certain goal, while the awarded penalty was a not a certain goal (and so it proved).

[ampersand]

No, I'm not expecting perfection, there'll always be the likes of mis-timed tackles. I'm wanting no deliberate cheating.

But anyway, having seen it again last night, oaf's view that the ball would have hit Suarez's face is laughable. If he'd wanted to avoid the ball hitting his face he only needed to have moved a little bit left (if he actually needed to avoid it at all), and that would have been the 'instinctive' reaction - instead he moved his body massively to the right, and his arms/hands were extended further to the right than his face was. There is no doubt about it, it would have been a goal without his cheating.

And just going back on yesterday's discussion briefly, the reason why I disliked that so much is that the punishment was less than the crime. When someone is hacked down in the box, it's never a certain goal before that happens, so a penalty - where the taker has a greater chance of scoring than not - is a fair punishment, with the punishment greater than the crime. For that handball on the line, the punishment was lesser than the crime - the crime stopped a certain goal, while the awarded penalty was a not a certain goal (and so it proved).

[Nedson]

No, I'm not expecting perfection, there'll always be the likes of mis-timed tackles. I'm wanting no deliberate cheating.

But anyway, having seen it again last night, oaf's view that the ball would have hit Suarez's face is laughable. If he'd wanted to avoid the ball hitting his face he only needed to have moved a little bit left (if he actually needed to avoid it at all), and that would have been the 'instinctive' reaction - instead he moved his body massively to the right, and his arms/hands were extended further to the right than his face was. There is no doubt about it, it would have been a goal without his cheating.

[ampersand]

neil, you mentioned moving away from the ball as an instinctive reaction. how is that instinctive for a footballer? i know you'll say that it's not instinctive for an outfield player to use his hands, but if you do then i simply don't believe that you've ever kicked a ball. priority is for the ball not to cross the line and stupidly, outfield players will raise their hands to do so if it's split second. i remember carlos cuellar raising his hand to put the ball against celtic once. less instinctive than uruguay, but along the same lines.

i know that i've done it before but then i was naturally a goalie when i played.

[eFestivals]

neil, you mentioned moving away from the ball as an instinctive reaction. how is that instinctive for a footballer? i know you'll say that it's not instinctive for an outfield player to use his hands, but if you do then i simply don't believe that you've ever kicked a ball. priority is for the ball not to cross the line and stupidly, outfield players will raise their hands to do so if it's split second. i remember carlos cuellar raising his hand to put the ball against celtic once. less instinctive than uruguay, but along the same lines.

i know that i've done it before but then i was naturally a goalie when i played.

The natural human instinct is avoid the impact - and so a person would move away, and not towards, an object coming towards them.

The only exception to that would be to protect themselves from the impact (most probably with their hands/arms) - but that wouldn't involve first moving hugely towards the ball as Suarez did.

A footballer* obviously has developed an instinct towards the ball to some extent, but it would be a secondary instinct layered on top of the natural human instinct, and so with some amount of conciousness to that 'developed instinct'. It would be a delayed reaction (if only by a minuscule amount), because the person would firstly have to reject the instinct to move away from the ball.

(*I'm excluding goalies from what I'm saying here - they'd have a much greater developed instinct towards the ball with their hands).

That's my take on it, anyhow.

[ralph250]

For that handball on the line, the punishment was lesser than the crime - the crime stopped a certain goal, while the awarded penalty was a not a certain goal (and so it proved).

[sifi]

The rule in this instance is clearly wrong. Maybe the footballing authorities should review the rule - so that the opposition captain can make the decision as to having the man sent off and a pen, or awarding a goal. Although such a review will never happen.

[ampersand]

That's my take on it, anyhow.

[ampersand]

The rule in this instance is clearly wrong. Maybe the footballing authorities should review the rule - so that the opposition captain can make the decision as to having the man sent off and a pen, or awarding a goal. Although such a review will never happen.

[sifi]

mainly cos that would be ridiculous. as ralph said, had that happened in the 50th minute, ghana would have been at a huge advantage.

Edited July 7, 2010 by sifimaster

[ampersand]

They would have had the advantage regardless of whether the captain decides whether or not to send the guy off and have a pen, or take a guaranteed goal, surely?

[oafc0000]

Do people not think the fact it would of still have hit his head matters at all ??

For me a Pen was the right outcome when the ball would never have gone in the net anyway...

A penalty goal like in Rugby would of been subject to a full review anyway... aka the free kick not being given correctly...

Edited July 7, 2010 by oafc0000

[ralph250]

2-1 (was it) and 40 minutes to get a winner against 10 men.

[sifi]

i don't agree with being able to choose a punishment.

[ralph250]

Do people not think the fact it would of still have hit his head matters at all ??

Edited July 7, 2010 by ralph250