Germany is amazing, but why not rant?
Our world cup adventure continued last night with tix to the Spain /Tunisia game in Stuttgart. great fans, great time, fun game. our trip is great- beyond my high expectations, but let's list some of my least favorite things about the world cup:
The Wave- what a joke. sitting in a stadium, watching a great game, soaking in the atmosphere (passion, national pride, respect for the other team- incredible) and then some idiots decide to start the wave. whoever invented this needs to be tortured in some awful medieval fashion and i would like to observe. just watch the game!
Diving- the refs and FIFA need to do a better job with this. every time i see a guy writhing around, trying to draw a foul, and then he sprints around 30 seconds later- i just want to puke. i understand that things hurt a lot at first, but if you act like you are going to die, then either die or leave the game. fakers should be tossed from the game- italy and argentina would have no players left however.
Referees- I am sorry Peter, but I have to agree with Arena here. after last night's game (every call went Spain's way) and the Brazil/Aussie and US/Italy games, it is clear to me that the calls are incredibly biased in favor of the big soccer nations. is this because the refs are in awe of the houseold name players and the incredible traditions or because they know (hopefully unconciously but i have my doubts) that the big FAs control their destiny as refs (working big tournaments, prestige, etc.). Perhaps the answer is to have all professional refs- amateur refs don't really work in the NFL and their certainly is enough money in world football to have a cadre of full time pros available for big games in the big leagues and on the world stage.
Go Germany and Sweden!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
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Agree with you on the wave. I've never understood it and rarely have taken part. It kinda died in the US for the most part but seems alive in Europe. You'd think they'd have more class.
On diving: it's a hard call to make. A ref has only one angle to view action and TV often has a half dozen (I saw a baseball game last night when a guy was beaned -- he's OK -- and then watched the replay from, no joke, 6 different angles. He got hit in each one.) If you saw the Champions league final between Arsenal and Barcelona, the "foul" that let to Barca's first goal was a dive -- there was no contact. But the ref was properly on the left side of the action (his AR on the right touch line) so from his angle, it looked like the Arsenal player clipped the Barca guy. But I do agree that if a player is strechered off the field, he should be forced to wait at least a minute to "heal" before being called back on. Or maybe see and get cleared by the 4th official.
As for the other calls: there have been a lot of yellow -- it's up a full card from 2002 (a little over 5/game this year, from 4+/game in 2002). Reds are pretty closely the same: one every 3 games (these are averages; some games have 3 some none and it evens out!) And even Arena agreed with the card to Pablo.
Do the big countries get a break? I don't know, maybe so. Australia was called for 25 fouls to 9 for Brazil. But, then again, how does Australia compensate for the better Brazilian skilled players? Interrupt their flow, more physical play. On the other hand, France was called for 20 fouls to Korea's 10, and Zidane, arguably one of the dozen best players and a key component of France's team, will miss his next game because of a second yellow (if France doesn't beat Togo even without him, they don't deverve to advance).
And don't forget: Michael Jordan never traveled!
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