The Beautiful game World Cup Soccer begins june 11

[EagerBeaver]

French Team Refuses To Practice; Chaos Reigns as Director Resigns

To me this is totally unprecedented that I can remember in any team sport where a player was thrown off a team for insubordination, and then the rest of the team rebelled and refused to practice:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-...ctice-nicolas-anelka-expulsion?cc=5901&ver=us

This is an amazing group of prima donnas. It is unthinkable that anything like this would ever happen in pro baseball, football, hockey or basketball.

 

[JH Fan]

It is unthinkable that anything like this would ever happen in pro baseball, football, hockey or basketball.

Whish they had this in Hockey. The HABS would have kept Roy back in the 90's instead of keeping the coach and their stupid administration who never won a fre*king stanley cup ever since.

 

[BayLeaf]

Amazing game by Brazil today,they look super hot,Paraguay also,as for Italy ..well do not think it will be their year..Blow on BLOW ON my dear African...viva los vuvuzelas...hehehe

 

[master_bates]

Anelka will be no loss to the french who had no business being in the world cup in the first place

Brazil was brilliant today minus the hand ball goal but Ivory coast really started playing dirty after going down 3 - 0 which was dissapointing.

Kaka should not have been sent off, Keita ran into him and then did a good job of fooling the ref who should have asked the linesman for his opinion on what happened.

Italy tied with new zealand, hardly a result of a world cup champ. The kiwis goal was offside and the ref should not have given that PK either.

Anxious to see how north korea will play tomorrow vs portugal, I really enjoyed watching theyre style
of play reminds me of the old Azzuri style of everyone forward on offence and everyone back on defence.

 

[Merlot]

Hello all,

That horrible referee may have done his last match:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-.../us/fifa-ax-us-slovenia-ref-wc&cc=5901?ver=us

The worst thing is being repeatedly asked to explain his decision by the USA players and refusing to do so. It would not surprise me if the FIFA investigation reveals a large cash deposit going into his bank account in the days before this match. We are seeing the ugly pimples of soccer and they all have to do with how the games are being officiated, yellow cards, red cards, disallowed goals etc. It has to be stopped. BTW all 3 goals by the USA were amazing goals!

All these serious accusations of cheating and bribery over an official call. I'm as angry as you, but I thought you believed in the sanctity of official calls no matter how obviously wrong? So what happened to the purity of "the call" and the huge problem previously cited in setting a precedent that would imply going back and changing many calls? Or are we just purging anger here?

hmm,

Merlot

 

[Special K]

Anelka will be no loss to the french who had no business being in the world cup in the first place

Brazil was brilliant today minus the hand ball goal but Ivory coast really started playing dirty after going down 3 - 0 which was dissapointing.

Kaka should not have been sent off, Keita ran into him and then did a good job of fooling the ref who should have asked the linesman for his opinion on what happened.

Italy tied with new zealand, hardly a result of a world cup champ. The kiwis goal was offside and the ref should not have given that PK either.

Anxious to see how north korea will play tomorrow vs portugal, I really enjoyed watching theyre style
of play reminds me of the old Azzuri style of everyone forward on offence and everyone back on defence.

They should institute video replay for these bullshit acting jobs by the players. Kaka got kicked out of the game and didn't even do anything wrong, it was completely asinine and the Ivory Coast player should be suspended!

 

[ghn1575]

This tournament is a total failure for the referees who have already changed the result of so many games... There is no way continuing to refuse video in soccer. It makes it just so ridiculous...

 

[EagerBeaver]

All these serious accusations of cheating and bribery over an official call. I'm as angry as you, but I thought you believed in the sanctity of official calls no matter how obviously wrong? So what happened to the purity of "the call" and the huge problem previously cited in setting a precedent that would imply going back and changing many calls? Or are we just purging anger here?

There is a big difference between a blown call that does not change the result of a game and a blown call that changes the result of a game by negating a victory. This tournament has been an unmitigated disaster as far as officiating goes, and the only precedent that FIFA should worry about is the new precedent which will remove the black cloud and the rotten stench currently hanging over the credibility of this World Cup and this sport.

 

[ghn1575]

Maybe you cannot change the result of a game after a game but :
- you can change it during the game with video and the 4th referee (they do it in hockey for exemple, and they even put the time back)
- you can remove erroneous yellow or red cards without changing the game result... does kaka really need to be out of game 3 ???? NO does keita need to get a red card after the game for faking ??? YES
- moreover you should empower de referees and exclude players insulting them (this puts an extra pression pression on their shoulder and make there job even harder)

Nothing is new, everything is done in North America sports (hockey, football at least) I guess Baskett ball also... Is soccer so much different ??

 

[EagerBeaver]

Anxious to see how north korea will play tomorrow vs portugal, I really enjoyed watching theyre style of play reminds me of the old Azzuri style of everyone forward on offence and everyone back on defence.

There was nobody back on defense. 7-0 Portugal. All this talk about North Korea playing wonderful defense was shattered as myth.

 

[JH Fan]

Nothing is new, everything is done in North America sports (hockey, football at least) I guess Baskett ball also... Is soccer so much different ??

Yup ! Soccer is no. 1

As if in North America it's always better.
Heck ! They change the rules in the playoffs to favor more violence

 

[ghn1575]

I did not say everything is better in North America. But as a fan I can see that there are so much less scrapped games by wrong calls in hockey or football than in soccer... With thing such as Maradonna's hand, Thierry Henry's, Kaka's red card.... soccer just looks ridiculous and unfair... it demonstrates everytime how cheaters can win which is not a sport value. I ve been living in Europ half of my life and in Canada the other half... I can see the difference regarding the sports image in the news, in the people mind, etc.

 

[EagerBeaver]

it demonstrates everytime how cheaters can win which is not a sport value.

This is the problem.......that the games are determined by fraudulent actions of players, rather than legitimate fouls, or penalties on legitimate fouls.

Think about this: in the NFL, Lawrence Taylor tackles Joe Theismann so hard on a sack, that his leg breaks viciously and his bone is protruding from the skin. No penalty is called, because it is a clean hit. Theismann's career is ended.

Jim McMahon is driven into the turf so hard that his spleen is ruptured. No penalty is called. McMahon is never the same player again.

Tom Brady has his knee torn up on a late hit. No penalty is called. Brady's season is ended and the Patriots lose a chance at going back to the Super Bowl.

NFL fans are used to seeing stuff like this. Then they turn on a soccer match, see no contact of any kind (let alone bones beng broken, knees being shredded and spleens being ruptured), and players are being red carded and goals are being disallowed. It's appalling and shocking to the sensibilities of any average North American sports fan. What we see is a lot of preening for the refs, no real contact resulting in any injuries or even impediment in many if not most cases. These are the problems with soccer that need to be eliminated from the sport. It's totally unacceptable and it is also unacceptable that they not have instant replay or perhaps an NFL-like challenge system to trigger replays on controversial calls. And unfortunately these artificial dramas are cropping up consistently and they are determining outcomes of games. NOT ACCEPTABLE, PERIOD.

 

[JH Fan]

This is the problem.......that the games are determined by fraudulent actions of players, rather than legitimate fouls, or penalties on legitimate fouls.

Think about this: in the NFL, Lawrence Taylor tackles Joe Theismann so hard on a sack, that his leg breaks viciously and his bone is protruding from the skin. No penalty is called, because it is a clean hit. Theismann's career is ended.

Jim McMahon is driven into the turf so hard that his spleen is ruptured. No penalty is called. McMahon is never the same player again.

Tom Brady has his knee torn up on a late hit. No penalty is called. Brady's season is ended and the Patriots lose a chance at going back to the Super Bowl.

NFL fans are used to seeing stuff like this. Then they turn on a soccer match, see no contact of any kind (let alone bones beng broken, knees being shredded and spleens being ruptured), and players are being red carded and goals are being disallowed. It's appalling and shocking to the sensibilities of any average North American sports fan. What we see is a lot of preening for the refs, no real contact resulting in any injuries or even impediment in many if not most cases. These are the problems with soccer that need to be eliminated from the sport. It's totally unacceptable and it is also unacceptable that they not have instant replay or perhaps an NFL-like challenge system to trigger replays on controversial calls. And unfortunately these artificial dramas are cropping up consistently and they are determining outcomes of games. NOT ACCEPTABLE, PERIOD.

Bill Buckner's World Series Error- In 1986
Chris Webber's Ill-Advised Timeout in 1993 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship
'The Curse of the Bambino.' in 2003 ALCS.
Brett Favre's Overtime Interception in 2008 NFC Championship.

Should we say more about credibility ?
http://www.provencehome.org/refsuck/pages/waltcoleman.html
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-worst-calls-in-baseball-history.php
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog...and-makes-the-worst-call-of-al?urn=mlb,197210

 

[Merlot]

There is a big difference between a blown call that does not change the result of a game and a blown call that changes the result of a game by negating a victory. This tournament has been an unmitigated disaster as far as officiating goes, and the only precedent that FIFA should worry about is the new precedent which will remove the black cloud and the rotten stench currently hanging over the credibility of this World Cup and this sport.

So we are talking about two different standards. One is consistency of principal as merited no matter what the importance of the issue or episode, and the other is the relative importance of "the call" upon the outcome regardless of the clarity of the error itself or any relative merit.

On the World Cup itself as a whole, possible corruption always seem to be much more evident when sports competition crosses international boundaries, added to the ever-present possibility of corruption for individual profit the insertion of national politics or biases cannot but increase the risks...sometimes dramatically. It is inexplicable that the referees controlling the game have no official responsibility or requirement to explain a call or who the penalty was on like the one that robbed the U.S. of it's victory. Given also the lack of immediate review, with latitude for the refs like that the opportunity for exploitation and corruption is wide open. I am not saying this year's World Cup displays corruption, sheer stupidity, or incompetence or some combination by the referees. But any of those possibilities makes some sort of game time oversight of the referees seem sensible at the very least.

Cheers,

Merlot

 

[JH Fan]

Portugal vs. Chile = festin de buts ! Goal festivities !

For those who wants a lot of goal it is the game to watch on replay

Imagine... in US Footbal the score would be 49 to 7.

 

[protagoras]

You probably mean Portugal vs Popular Republic of Korea

 

[EagerBeaver]

US-Slovenia Referee Is Benched For World Cup

http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/wo...er-dropped-call--fbintl_ro-fifaref062110.html

A total embarrassment.

"On Monday, the FIFA referee committee tried to go on a charm offensive by inviting the media to an open day but totally defeated the object of the exercise by refusing to answer questions about specific decisions.

Neither Coulibaly nor Stephane Lannoy – the French referee who erred in sending off Brazil’s Kaka against the Ivory Coast on Sunday – were present. Coulibaly’s assistant, Inacio Candido of Angola, was in attendance."

 

[JH Fan]

You probably mean Portugal vs Popular Republic of Korea

Yup ! I didn`t see the game yet. My bud said Chile.
Can`t wait to get out and see the replay of it !

 

[EagerBeaver]

Zidane Upset By France's Performance On and Off The Field

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-...ays-team-salvage-world-cup-win?cc=5901&ver=us