2010 FIFA World Cup

[Malcador]

The nearly unanimous consensus there was an offside when there wasn't makes me wonder how many other split second actions did nearly everyone fail to observe and are now using their mistakes to blame the referees. As far as I can tell the referees did a great job doing what they were paid to do.....being professionals that correctly call plays so fast that they are missed by 99% of the people watching the match.

 

Wait, in the final ? A great job? Riiiight. The tournament had pretty good referees overall. The Guatemelan one was pretty terrible, though. Shame the referee for the 3rd place match didn't do this one.

[213374U]

In fact, your exaggeration is so great I think you're deliberately trolling here.

Dear TrueNeutral:

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Xabi Alonso

 

 

I guess I am just drawn to perennial underachievers. Not sure what I am going to do now that they no longer deserve that title.

You could, oh, I don't know... Support Netherlands?

[J.E. Sawyer]

The bad call I was referring to wasn't offsides (Iniesta clearly wasn't) but what should have been a Dutch corner kick turned into a Spanish goal kick despite the ball deflecting off of the Spanish wall.

[Tigranes]

FG what are you arguing against? I'm saying the goal was legit, that there was no offside.

 

And yes, the FK decision beggared belief. Elia had gone away so there was nobody within, what, 2m of the Spanish wall? And the ball bounced off like it hit a laser field.

[serch]

Holland shouldn't have make it to the second half FFS. They should have been disqualified. What are you smoking?

[Flouride]

Howard Webb ruined the final. He somehow misses clear dives from Iniesta and then misses what should have been a corner which then leads to Spain scoring...

CBA to even mention the other mistakes he did.

[HoonDing]

It had to happen Edited July 12, 2010 by virumor

[Blarghagh]

In fact, your exaggeration is so great I think you're deliberately trolling here.

Dear TrueNeutral:

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Xabi Alonso

 

High comedy to call the Dutch play rough, other than De Jong's high boot, most of the fouls are pretty common other than the typical Spanish overacting.

 

You're so late, someone else already wrote the answer to your post before you even posted it.

 

I looked at Spain's goal again. There was no offside on first pass(see picture and explanation below). The second pass after Spain got the ball back wasn't offside so that was clean.

 

There was no mistake by the referees.

 

Okay, fine, there was no offside, I must have misjudged it or been influenced by the dutch commentator who claimed there was an offside, but that last statement is still not true. Ungiven corner.

 

Speaking of offsides, what was up with Villa? The man was chronically offside for the entire time he was on the field. I'll gladly concede that Spain probably would have gotten a whole bunch of goals in if not for him ruining EVERY SINGLE attempt on the Dutch goal by his teammates in the first half of the game.

Edited July 12, 2010 by TrueNeutral

[Fallen Ghost]

And the Netherlands were spared quite a few red cards due to Webb's decision not strictly enforce every rule. Hell nearly everyone who isn't Dutch defended the referee's handling of the match. To see the Dutch whine about a mistake against them is extremely hypocritical and wrong because after the way they played there should have been less than 5 dutch players left on the field by the end of the game as former world cup referee Graham Poll points out himself(http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/w...010/8809048.stm) and many others also indicated there should be no tolerance for the way the Dutch played. The just weren't capable of keeping up with the Spanish players' game so they resorted to violence and there's A LOT more than just the kick to the chest.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Fallen Ghost

[Blarghagh]

There you go again with the complete exaggeration. I've already conceded that de Jong was a moron when he did that ninja kick thing and should have gotten red, but all other fouls were minor and the Spanish actually made worse ones throughout the match with that SINGLE exception (and perhaps Van Bommel's stretched leg tackle). And the one red card that was given had NO reason whatsoever. The Spanish, however, only got carded for a tenth of the fouls they committed (Puyol was a walking red card waiting to happen that kicked everyone who came near the Spanish goal on his side in the upper legs nowhere near the ball) and most of the Dutch yellows were completely undeserved.

 

EDIT: Actually, what was that even aimed at? Not strictly enforce a rule? I talked about not giving a corner (making a mistake has nothing to do with enforcing rules) and David Villa being offside and being CAUGHT every time, meaning he WAS enforcing the rules. The point you were making wasn't even remotely related to anything I said.

Edited July 12, 2010 by TrueNeutral

[Fallen Ghost]

There you go again with the complete exaggeration. I've already conceded that de Jong was a moron when he did that ninja kick thing and should have gotten red, but all other fouls were minor and the Spanish actually made worse ones throughout the match with that SINGLE exception (and perhaps Van Bommel's stretched leg tackle). And the one red card that was given had NO reason whatsoever. The Spanish, however, only got carded for a tenth of the fouls they committed and most of the Dutch yellows were completely undeserved.

 

THAT post is the single biggest exaggeration I see.....a bloody former world cup referee clearly states Webb was kind or 8 dutch players could have ended up with red cards and everyone besides the dutch agrees they were overly violent but you say most of their cards were undeserved? I don't think so and ultimately even the dutch team admit the Spanish were the better team and deserved to win.

[HoonDing]

That early flying kick, combined with some shenanigans from Robben may have put the referee against the Dutch team.

[Blarghagh]

a bloody former world cup referee clearly states

 

Wow, defending his own. Next thing you know, FIFA will do the same thing. What a shock!

 

As for everyone agreeing, I don't know what thread you've been reading. This thread is more divided than a presidential debate.

 

EDIT: And saying the Spanish are innocent is a terrible, terrible lie. We all saw Iniesta kicking van Bommel when he was already down, he deserved red as much as Nigel de Jong did. Neither team deserved this title. It was a horrendous match not fit to have been in a world cup, let alone be a final.

Edited July 12, 2010 by TrueNeutral

[Pidesco]

TrueNeutral is right, in the sense that the red card and goal were borne out of referee mistakes.

 

However, I'd also say that the referee was unbiasedly incompentent and helped the game become much worse so at the end of the day Holland can't really complain.

 

About the only thing he did that I can applaud was the yellow for Van Bommel. It basically ensured that Van Bommel didn't play another whole game by kicking at the opposition.

[Flouride]

THAT post is the single biggest exaggeration I see.....a bloody former world cup referee clearly states Webb was kind or 8 dutch players could have ended up with red cards and everyone besides the dutch agrees they were overly violent but you say most of their cards were undeserved? I don't think so and ultimately even the dutch team admit the Spanish were the better team and deserved to win.

 

Graham "2 yellow cards don't mean I should give this player a red card" Poll is your source? Please gimme me/us a break. That guy was just horrible the last time I've seen him reffing international game.

[Walsingham]

I agreed with the British comentators that Holland was lucky to be playing with 11 men by half time. They could have been down to 9,. I can't remember his name, but as well as de Jong there was that big arrogant bastard kept doing totally unnecessary tackles...

 

To me, anything which happened in the closing minutes pales by comparison.

[Gfted1]

So the octopus was 9-0, impressive.

[213374U]

You're so late, someone else already wrote the answer to your post before you even posted it.

Oh, right. So that doesn't count because... it's an exception. Robben's dive doesn't count either because... that's another exception. Van Bommel's constant kicking and stomping don't count because the man is an exception unto himself, and so on and so forth.

 

Hahaha, but yeah, everyone but you is biased, quite obviously.

 

 

TrueNeutral is right, in the sense that the red card and goal were borne out of referee mistakes.

 

However, I'd also say that the referee was unbiasedly incompentent and helped the game become much worse so at the end of the day Holland can't really complain.

 

About the only thing he did that I can applaud was the yellow for Van Bommel. It basically ensured that Van Bommel didn't play another whole game by kicking at the opposition.

Van Bommel should have been sent off before half time, and Heitinga's cards were well deserved. While it's undeniable that the corner kick that the ref didn't grant is pretty inexcusable, it's a bit of a stretch to chalk up Spain's victory to bad refereeing. Edited July 12, 2010 by 213374U

[Blarghagh]

Heitinga's second yellow was no foul.

 

Also, I called ONE person biased who obviously is, and I never claimed I wasn't biased. But at least I'm objective enough to admit that my team played a bad match made worse by terrible refereeing. The same happened to Spain, however, and some seem to think it didn't.

Edited July 12, 2010 by TrueNeutral

[Pidesco]

I don't think Heitinga's second yellow was deserved at all, considering Iniesta fell down as opposed to Heitinga pushing him down. He went down by himself because he felt Heitinga's hand on his shoulder. A few minutes later he got another Holland player carded in similar fashion.

 

Now, I'm not saying that Spain's victory wasn't deserved, because it was. It's just that seeing a world cup final being decided by the neutral team on the pitch annoys me.

[Meshugger]

Out of a game that wasn't excellent by itself, the better team won. It could've easily have been 3-3 or 4-4 by fulltime.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Meshugger

[Wombat]

Out of a game that wasn't excellent by itself, the better team won. It could've easily have been 3-3 or 4-4 by fulltime.

Yea...the match being full of violence was just the result. As a spiritual successor of Cruyff's football philosophy, Spain was successful in pressuring Netherlands by taking control in the middle of the fields. Netherlands felt keeping Spaniards free in the mid field is dangerous and began to try to take control there. Hence the result: They started mass karate match, stopping playing football and mass-producing yellow cards. However, cards seem to have worked as they are supposed to, suppressing these violent "physical contacts" . So, after all, Spain managed to go through to the victory by sticking to their principle. Of course, that goal kick should have been a corner kick but, IMO, that jumping kick also deserved a red card. All in all, I guess, against the tricky official ball and defense heavy tactics, WC 2010 turned out to be the victory of Paul the Octopus the "modern" possession football after these 36 years.

[Balthamael]

Heitinga's second yellow was no foul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glg79r9KnQQ

 

It was, actually. The tv-replay made it look like Heitinga just tapped Iniesta's shoulder, and Iniesta fell down. However, if you look at the broad angle replay, Heitinga has his hand on Iniesta's shoulder for good 1-1.5 seconds. The zoomed in replay begins when the contact is already about to end. Now, the angle is too broad for me to tell for sure that Heitinga is holding Iniesta, but given what I saw I am inclined to accept the referee's interpretation.

[HoonDing]

It'll be interesting to see if there'll be experiments with technological help on Euro 2012.

[Gorth]

Who needs technological help?...

 

 

Octopus Paul gets SWC trophy

 

Looks like he is going into retirement now though.