The Official 2006 FIFA World Cup thread. (5 Viewers)

[withoutaface]

The red card was as dodgy as the penalty.

 

[bubz :D]

last night - was too shocked to do anything except bury my face in my hands for a full five minutes after the goal, and then wander aimlessly around the city with friends.

this morning (or rather, afternoon when i woke up) - cried when i read the papers.

i don't want to go past norton street when i go home later...

 

[_dhj_]

hey do you guys reckon there might be the slightest chance that they will re-consider the penalty? anyone?

No. They'd only say that a replay may have been possible IF the replay wasn't needed - like in the Australia Croatia game.

 

[Komit]

I have to say I'm very disappointed with the reaction to this. This is football and everyone should come to grips with it. Although I stand by the fact that it was a penalty, I still believe that it should not have been called. HOWEVER, some of the atittudes coming through such as calling FIFA "mafia organisation" and negatively branding the world game has disgusted me, to say the least. The true football fans will realise that this is what happens in the sport and you must pull through it. The bandwagonners will ditch the game and continue to give it a shit name ion Australia - that until the Socceroos do an awesome job again. So, for everyone out there giving up hope on football.....go fuck yourselves.

 

[withoutaface]

They wouldn't consider the replay because the ref didn't do anything objectively wrong, whereas there were no grey areas about 3 yellows.

 

[king_of_boredom]

true, no amount of debating will change anything. enjoy the rest of the competition. but full credit to gianluigi buffon, definitely one of the GK's of the tournament so far. and we've set ourselves firmly in the world's eyes - we can look forward to SA 2010 with (hopefully) a stronger, fitter unit.

(vote 5 stars, kthx).

 

[withoutaface]

I don't see how Buffon was man of the match, he barely touched the ball :/

 

[Jimmy_B]

....and everyone should stop bagging out refs. They are only human. We have the benefit of replays over and over again whereas they have a split-second. I think most people should stop being sour cunts and look ahead.

fuck that. if i am shit at my job, i'd have it pointed out to me and rightfully so. if a ref has a shit game or makes a major mistake he should cop it and shouldnt be protected by all this he's only human bullshit.

it's not being bitter by pointing out that he fucked up and cost us the game. it's a fact.

 

[acmilan]

I have to say I'm very disappointed with the reaction to this. This is football and everyone should come to grips with it. Although I stand by the fact that it was a penalty, I still believe that it should not have been called. HOWEVER, some of the atittudes coming through such as calling FIFA "mafia organisation" and negatively branding the world game has disgusted me, to say the least. The true football fans will realise that this is what happens in the sport and you must pull through it. The bandwagonners will ditch the game and continue to give it a shit name ion Australia - that until the Socceroos do an awesome job again. So, for everyone out there giving up hope on football.....go fuck yourselves.

I completely agree and couldnt have said it better. Im just glad there are some people who realised that this result doesnt taint football at all. It may or may not have been a bad decision, but it wouldnt be the first nor the last, its the nature of the game. Im just about fed up with being attacked for being italian - to the extent where im starting to fight back now. Its not as if the Italian community had any bearing on the match, they simply cheer for their nation with all their heart and hope to win.

 

[bazookajoe]

The red card was as dodgy as the penalty.

Completely agreed.
And for the person saying the refs were against Australia in every match, the ref this time was very rational, very fair and completely unbiased. He just misjudged two events, one for both sides. He's hardly against Australia for giving the penalty if he felt there was grounds for a penalty there.

 

[Komit]

Don't compare your job to his job. He should cop criticism but it should be limited - not to the extent of blaming everyone else in the FIFA executive.

I agree that he shouldn't have called the penalty - not because it wasn't a penalty, but because it was too controversial.

At the end of the day, Australia cost themselves the match:
(1) They should have capitalised on the one man advantage.
(2) They should not have let an opposing player anywhere near their own 6 yard box 10 seconds from the end.

If Australia was able to do this, the refereeing issue would never have occured. So you have to think, was it the ref's fault or the Socceroos own fault?

I'd say that the ref merely compounded Australia's missed opportunities and failure to capitalise. It's the the epitome of the old football adage - "You need to take advantage of your chances".

Was it the refs fault or the Socceroos own fault? What do you guys think?

 

[_dhj_]

No. It was not our fault for not taking our chances. Everyone knows that the Italians have the best defense in the competition, having not conceeded a goal so far (bar the own goal). But this is the knockout stage, and a penalty shootout (which Italy has a poor record in)was not out of the question.

 

[bazookajoe]

So in overall fairness, it's us who lost the match. Most of the team played horribly, bar our defense, and couldn't score with a one man advantage for over half an hour. Guus should also take some of it as he brought on Aloisi too late and didn't even consider bringing on anyone else before extra time. He should have been trying to gain through the opportunity presented to us from the red card, but we couldn't.

Yeah, that's my view again. I don't think it was our fault the penalty was awarded, but we really should have been leading at that point anyway.

 

[blue_chameleon]

Robbed.


@ Komit: Yeah, I see the penatly as one that should never have been given, although on the otherside we should never have given the referee the opportunity to call the penatly. I think, once again, it was a very poor effort on the ref's behalf, certainly not a perfect match from the ref.

As to things that may have been said about FIFA, and indeed the Italians, I think that this is very much a way of venting disappointment at the fact Australia have played so well, yet are unable to advance. IMO, a vast majority of the soceroo's supporters ver the last couple of months could be accused as having "jumped on the bandwagon", although you only need to look at Australian sport in general to understand that this is just part of what Australians do. Yeah sure, had it not been for Australia qualifying for the World Cup and doing as well as they have, then its fairly safe to say that there would not be the level of support that we have seen over the last couple of months. But, thats not to say that people who have been attracted to the sport as a result of its success are going to desert the sport just because Australia have been knocked out. Its quite easy to see that football/soccer is entering a pretty exciting stage now, and its looking attractive for many many reasons.

The popularity of different sports flucuate in Australia. Its just how things are. Soccer/Football in Australia is only going to get more exciting.

 

[Magister]

[SIZE="3"][/SIZE]Without actually going along with the "conspiracy against Australia" theory, it does look mighty suss that each of Australia's four games was marred by atrocious refereeing decisions. To come back as we did in the games where we fell behind early just shows the fighting qualities and never-say-die attitude of the Socceroos, but in reality, we should never been in those positions, anyway (apart from Kalac's clanger!). If only there could be a "third referee" or that contentious decisions be examined by instant replays and reversed if found to be wrong!! Australia would be through to the next round for sure as I had no doubt they would score at least once in the extra time period.

The guys did Australia proud and we should never forget what they achieved. They have taken the game further than any other Socceroo team and put Australia up there with the cream of world football. No-one can regard us as easybeats again!!

 

[Jimmy_B]

Don't compare your job to his job. He should cop criticism but it should be limited - not to the extent of blaming everyone else in the FIFA executive.

if a ref is shit, then there shouldn't be any problem in saying he was shit. he decided the course of the game that was still in the balance, he fucked up and there's nothing wrong with people having a bitch about it.

 

[otay]

Can I just dispell a myth. Just coz they had 10 men doesn't mean we should have scored. That is complete bullshit. When they had 11, they were goin forward more, and there were 'More' (quoted coz they are such a fucking good defensive unit these holes were still minor) holes in their defense, but when they were reduced to 10, 9 out of their 10 players were behind the ball. Now that makes it very damn difficult to score. Let alone the fact that they are the best team in the world at doing this. When they play defensive they are damn hard to crack, and last night they played defensive as soon as they lost materazzi. As Fozzie said it could really have been a blessing in disguise for them. We still created our chances and probably could have scored, but no way is it a foregone conclusion that coz they have 10 and we had 11 we shoulda scored. It doesn't work that way unfortunately. So credit must definetly go to the Italian defence (ironic though it was one of their defenders who dove but such is the irony of sport)

And what Jimmy B said above....500% correct. Let us have our bitch. In the end it wasn't anything other than the penalty that lost it for us. Just look at scoreline

 

[Far_Q]

Fuck, i've always hated the italian team, bunch of boring and uninspiring piece of shit team in history, now I hope they get fucked by Ukraine. C'mon Shevchenko!!!...hit some form and put 3 past those mongrels!!!...

 

[Magister]

[

I agree. It was a pity that each of our games was so badly influenced by the refs. I believe we were the only team in the whole tournament to have this happen so consistently-WHY????:burn: It seemed that more often than not, one of our players only had to go near an opponent to be whistled for a foul. I don't think too many officials and teams truly understand how Aussies play the game-hard, but fair and definitely not chucking dramatics all the time. I also think that teams were afraid of us beating them with our superior fitness and physicality. I tend to suspect that no-one could actually bear the thought of Australia making it to the semis (highly achievable and I predicted this from the outset)-dare I say even to the final?? No, I'm not kidding!!

 

[otay]

Another one of my theories on the Football Gods' wicked ways. Guus was extremely fucking lucky last world cup with Korea, this time not so much. We'll get ours back, dont worry