World Cup 2006

[Gilligan]

1) big phil has it now with 10 wins

Actually, I meant for a country. Brazil has now won 11 games in a row, is that the record for a country?

[kurohinge1]

. . . but let's hear the name and location . . .

You must've missed the post, 2 above yours.

Also, when you consider that a match runs about 2 hours all-up, on average, about 8 Japanese will kill themselves during a game. Quite sad.

But, for the [SIZE="4"]Golden U-Boat award[/SIZE] [SIZE="2"](TM)[/SIZE] (for the best dive), my nomination for yesterday is France for the penalty that Thierry Henry milked against Spain . . .

Henry had run into the back of Puyol, charging him between the shoulder blades. A free kick, whistled the arbiter - but a free kick to France! Worse, he showed Puyol the yellow card . . . more

You have to see the video to appreciate it, but French Henry shoulder-bumps Spain's Puyol, then the oscar performance begins.

I'm going for Brazil (from good old Group F) in the Brazil-France game.

[Mulboyne]

Henry milked it but Puyol wasn't running for the ball: with the line he took his only intention was to obstruct Henry which is a foul. Not every referee would give it but this guy had a good game and played a lot of advantage. I don't think he took any notice of Henry clutching his face. And I don't think Henry would have beaten Puyol to the ball if the Spaniard gone straight for it.

[kurohinge1]

Henry milked it but Puyol wasn't running for the ball: with the line he took his only intention was to obstruct Henry which is a foul. Not every referee would give it but this guy had a good game and played a lot of advantage. I don't think he took any notice of Henry clutching his face. And I don't think Henry would have beaten Puyol to the ball if the Spaniard gone straight for it.

Wise words Mulboyne-san, and I defer to your technical analysis in relation to that snippet of the game, however, the performance itself by Henry (clutching his head, without any head contact) is what is important for the potential award, and hence my nomination.

Here's some fun reading on this theme: The 10 best football dives (2003)

[GuyJean]

You have to see the video to appreciate it, but French Henry shoulder-bumps Spain's Puyol, then the oscar performance begins.

I just saw it.. That was terrible. Do they give yellows for flopping? They should..

I'd have to say around 25 to 30% of calls I've seen have been bogus.. Or been a major factor in determining the outcome.. For me, it's just frustrating to watch sometimes.. Is this why people riot and kill each over the sport?

I don't know.. It's probably just my ignorance of the game.. But I generally expect officiating to be as professional as the play.. And the players are damn good.

GJ

[ichigo partygirl]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17302491&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=beer-we-go--name_page.html

ENGLAND's massive army of World Cup fans is drinking Germany dry, it emerged yesterday.

Breweries warned beer could run out before the final because of huge demand from our supporters.
In Nuremberg, organisers revealed 70,000 England fans who flooded the city drank 1.2MILLION pints of beer - an average of 17 pints each.
Astonished bar keeper Herrmann Murr said: "Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time."
His bar at a fans' tent in the city ran out after they drained all 32 of his 50-litre (11 gallon) barrels.
Herr Murr calculated Britons were shifting beer at a staggering rate of 200 pints per minute.
City official Peter Murrmann said: "The English proved themselves world champs. They practically drank us dry.".......

[kamome]

City official Peter Murrmann said: "The English proved themselves world champs. They practically drank us dry.".......

Shouldn't this give England an automatic bye into the final four at least?

[Taro Toporific]

I just saw it.. That was terrible. Do they give yellows for flopping?...

All that "flopping" is totally pussy.

[canman]

I just read that the Japanese referee has been selected for the final 8 games. At least one Japanese has been able to remain in the World Cup.

[Greji]

All that "flopping" is totally pussy.

They need to set a panel of judges to assist the referee. They could hold up point cards for each dive, rating it for technical merit and overall performance!

[GuyJean]

All that "flopping" is totally pussy.

When I played American football, we always used to laugh at the 'soccer pussies'.. Now that I'm older... I snicker silently to myself.

No, those guys are incredible athletes with amazing skills; have to give them props.. I wish they would just stop 'acting' like such pussies.

GJ

[IkemenTommy]

[quote="GuyJean"]
No, those guys are incredible athletes with amazing skills]
I agree with you 100%. I always see these pansies holding their ankles or whatever in pain.. then give them a few seconds later and they would be sprinting down the field. Unless they really break something, quit the acting.. but I must say that some of those are quite Oscar-worthy performances.

[Mulboyne]

...the performance itself by Henry (clutching his head, without any head contact) is what is important for the potential award

There's been a lot of press in the UK on the same issue. Here's James Lawton from the Independent:

How we're all being cheated

The nation is shocked. Our favourite adopted footballer, Thierry Henry, is caught out in a grotesque piece of cheating. An unmanly, unutterably cheap act of gamesmanship. He clutches his head and the national stomach churns...The impact of Henry's outrageous kidology in his claiming of a free kick which would probably have been awarded anyway was mostly to do with the image he has created for himself. It was one of almost imperious moral rectitude. In the end France beat Spain with impressive authority, but the fact that the crucial free kick was tainted by Henry's theatrical posing will inevitably linger longer in the mind than the glory of his ageing team-mate and match-winner Zinedine Zidane...more...

British football is having something of a dilemma about diving. We've always thought that isn't part of our game. The current German manager, Jurgen Klinsmann said recently that he consciously reined back on diving when he played in England because he realized that fans weren't very accepting of it (he was known by some as the "U-Boat Commander" - "Dive! Dive! Dive!"). Since he last played, though, there are many more non-English players and managers and it has crept into the Premiership. At international level, we tend to excoriate foreign players who try to con the referee but get more ambivalent about English players winning dubious penalties on the ethically dodgy grounds that we're only levelling things up a bit. Some commentators even applaud them for getting a bit more streetwise. The bitter pain of Maradona's "Hand of God" goal still lingers.

Do they give yellows for flopping?

Yes. Brazil were penalized for diving in the game against Ghana. It just doesn't happen enough.

Refereeing controversies are nothing new for the World Cup and it's not the only sport to be afflicted. Boxing is notorious in that respect. Football is also not the only sport with cheats as drug scandals continue to show the world over. TV coverage does expose the officiating team to substantially more criticism these days so the efforts really have to go to establishing a generation of top flight referees. The World Cup is a huge tournament with huge pressures for players but also the same for officials and some of them just don't have enough experience to cope. I've even heard some ex-players say that that is one of the joys of the game and it is up to teams to cope.

Lawton in the article above reports that FIFA has asked referees to go easy on the cards in the last rounds for fear that the key games will be missing the top players. I haven't seen that anywhere else but I hope it's true. It has been a great tournament so far, much better than 2002 and the upcoming games look very tasty.

[Ptyx]

I am against video replay. Although there have been horrible mistakes made this cup I think video replay puts the ref at an unfair advantage. The ref shouldn't be compared to video from multi angles and slo-mo as the ref has one angle and a split second to make the decision.

An unfair advantage against who ? The players ? They're not playing against each other. He's supposed to apply the rules of the game, anything that makes it easier on him is a progress.
And i'm not saying let's use video replay on every action, but yes when the ref is about to give a penalty then let him see the video first. After some point the players will take notice and stop the "flopping" which is totally pussy as stated before.
But Fifa won't do it because they want the fans to get pissed off at the refs. It's more entertaining that way.
Seeing all the mistakes they made in that worldcup it should be the perfect argument for video replay, still they're not even talking about it.
Rugby did it, if i'm not mistaken, why should we not not apply it to football as well ?

[GuyJean]

And i'm not saying let's use video replay on every action, but yes when the ref is about to give a penalty then let him see the video first.

I'm not a fan of instant replay; it's ruined American football, IMO..

What about 'delayed' video replay? An officiating panel watches the video after the game; if a player obviously dove, he gets a yellow. I bet it would cut down on the 'acting' during the game.. And a new 'flopping highlights' market would emerge!

GJ

[kamome]

[quote="GuyJean"]I'm not a fan of instant replay]
I think video replay has helped football overall. It has corrected some bad calls, although even with video replay some of the bad calls do not get overturned because there has to be overwhelming evidence that contradicts the ref's initial call.

GJ, isn't that true?


Referee Bill Leavy reviews the play after Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger's 1-yard dive was called a touchdown. The call stood as a score. (AP)

Courtesy of www.superbowl.com

[GuyJean]

I think video replay has helped football overall. It has corrected some bad calls, although even with video replay some of the bad calls do not get overturned because there has to be overwhelming evidence that contradicts the ref's initial call.

GJ, isn't that true?

Aside from the Super Fix last year, I don't think there are that many bad calls in American football.. A lot of the 'bad' calls aren't even 'reviewable'..

There has to be a balance]Bill Laimbeer [/URL]because he was such a floppin' wanker! Play the game like a professional sport, not a community college drama class..

With American football, I don't enjoy watching nothing, or a convenient commercial break, for 90 seconds while the the ref looks into a box.. There's too much stop and go in the sport already..

GJ

[kurohinge1]

[quote="GuyJean"]. . . What about 'delayed' video replay? An officiating panel watches the video after the game]

I think that's one of the best suggestions I've heard, GuyJean.

Nice one.

[Mulboyne]

Just as in rugby, football officials can punish fouls after the game if they weren't picked up by the referee. When Figo headbutted the Dutch player the other day, he likely would have been red carded by the after-the-event squad but the referee had already given him a yellow so they couldn't act. That was interesting because he had his back to Figo and so must have relied on his linesmen to tell him what happened. The linesman who informed him clearly dodged his responsibility. If he saw a butt then he should have called red.

The key there is that the external referee should only add to the on-pitch referee's judgement. If you extend that to punishing a dive then you are asking an external judge to rule against the referee: if he saw the dive but called play on then presumably he didn't want to punish it. If he ruled a foul then if the external referee says it was a dive then he contradicts the man on the field. That's a big change in the culture of the game.

[kurohinge1]

. . . The key there is that the external referee should only add to the on-pitch referee's judgement. If you extend that to punishing a dive then you are asking an external judge to rule against the referee: if he saw the dive but called play on then presumably he didn't want to punish it. If he ruled a foul then if the external referee says it was a dive then he contradicts the man on the field. That's a big change in the culture of the game.

My interpretation of GuyJean's idea was a post-match disciplinary action where penalties are dished out to guilty players where the incident was missed or wrongly interpreted during the game.

The match referees should be included in the process in case they actually did correctly interpret the incident but had a reason why they didn't take the expected action. Most, on review of the tapes, will no doubt concede that it appeared different at the time and that they were duped.

If players know that they won't get away with it, they will be less likely to do it (unless they're actually prepared to wear the sacrifice later). But on the whole, it should cut down such behaviour. At present, the actors (and not all players are such) will "try it on" without fear of reprisal unless the referee is just lucky enough to see it for what it is at the time.

Just my 2 cents (or rather, my interpretation of GuyJean's 2 cents!)

[GuyJean]

Just my 2 cents (or rather, my interpretation of GuyJean's 2 cents!)

Yep. You are correct.. We now have 4 cents.

GJ

[Mulboyne]

That's what I thought GuyJean meant and I'm not opposed to the idea. FIFA, however, has always been reluctant to contradict referees so that idea, although it appears less intrusive than video technology used during the game, is less likely to get their vote. A referee can only "miss" a dive if it happens off the ball. If it's on the ball then he either wrongly rules a foul (potentially a penalty) or decides the dive wasn't worth a booking. If an external referee decide it was worth a booking then you get the question of whether the player should still have been on the pitch if he already had a yellow card or later picked one up. If he decides a foul wasn't a foul then you might get the issue of reversing a card. The implications of a revised judgement for the result are complex.

That may not sound important but football is global game ruled by global law courts. British clubs can't put a restriction on the number of overseas players in the UK leagues because that would be ruled an EU restraint of trade. A salary cap won't work for the same reasons. The Bosman ruling confirmed that the game isn't given any special business protection and a club or country could easily use a retrospective judgement to demand a replay. FIFA won't want to provide anyone with grounds for that kind of claim by second-guessing their own referees because the economic costs are too high.

[GuyJean]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...

Oh Mulboyne! You and your damn....er..uh... logic! There's no place for that crap here.

GJ

[Gilligan]

That's what I thought GuyJean meant and I'm not opposed to the idea. FIFA, however, has always been reluctant to contradict referees so that idea, although it appears less intrusive than video technology used during the game, is less likely to get their vote. A referee can only "miss" a dive if it happens off the ball. If it's on the ball then he either wrongly rules a foul (potentially a penalty) or decides the dive wasn't worth a booking. If an external referee decide it was worth a booking then you get the question of whether the player should still have been on the pitch if he already had a yellow card or later picked one up. If he decides a foul wasn't a foul then you might get the issue of reversing a card.

You could also have a bigger problem. Take as a specific example the Australia-Italy game. Now I don't know enough about the rules of the game to say that the Italian player who took a dive in the box at the end of the game deserved a yellow card (from what I've heard it seems pretty evident that he DID take a dive), but if he did deserve a yellow card for it and were given the card after the fact, then FIFA is essentially saying that the game should have gone into overtime -- this clearly undermines the integrity of the game itself. On the other hand, if the player deserved a yellow card but the people reviewing decided not to give him one because of the implication, that clearly undermines the integrity of the review process.

I'm not really trying to take a stand one way or the other, just trying to point out that the solution doesn't necessary eliminate the problem (although it may decrease its prevalence which would probably be a good thing) as much as it pushes it somewhere else.

[kurohinge1]

What I envisaged was that the post-match penalisation would not alter the outcome of the match. It would only penalise players for conduct that was missed or misinterpreted.

Given that everyone is already seeing these incidents ad nauseam on the TV and internet and the commentators are often clear about what should've happened but didn't, the only difference to what we currently see would be that the guilty players do not get away with such antics, and hence the motivation to try would be reduced.

[Mulboyne]

What I envisaged was that the post-match penalisation would not alter the outcome of the match.

Even if FIFA decided on that principle, they wouldn't be able to control what the courts would rule if a club or country decided to take legal recourse. The Argentinian Rugby Football Union was recently bankrupted when a player who was paralyzed in a game sued for damages. The court ruled that the officiating had been inadequate and the union was responsible. If FIFA was to set up a system which effectively overruled the decisions of the referee on the pitch then they would be conceding that the real-time officiating is inadequate and that would leave them very vulnerable.

Interesting piece here on 4thegame: Tantrums, Divers and Bullies: The World Cup in Statistics

...At the time of writing, the dirtiest team in the World Cup are...Australia. Yes, you happy-go-lucky 'we're the underdogs' Socceroos - you've been kicking lumps out of people all tournament...A statistic Chelsea scouts are rigorously pouring over as they look for new signings, the Greg Louganis index for hitting the turf and rolling around like a ninny is topped by the Italians. Who'd have thought it? They seemed such a rugged, fair-minded bunch of lads...Also looking strong, if not upright, are Didier Drogba's team, the Ivory Coast! Well I never. However, given Dirk Kuyt and Arjen Robben appeared to be taking part in a sponsored dive in the game against Portugal it's a wonder Holland are only in third, behind the Mexicans...more...

[Taka-Okami]

[Mulboyne]

The Argentinian manager, Pekerman, didn't remember the lesson of 1970. England were leading Germany 2-0 with 20 minutes to go when Bobby Charlton was substituted with a view to resting him. Germany were revitalized and went on to win. Argentina only had the one goal lead when Riquelme was substituted and again Germany took advantage of the missing man. The best-looking team in the competition are out.

[kurohinge1]

. . . If FIFA was to set up a system which effectively overruled the decisions of the referee on the pitch then they would be conceding that the real-time officiating is inadequate . . .

Whether or not FIFA concedes it, after slow-motion-replay was introduced, it become obvious to the viewing world that the real-time officiating is inadequate.

A post-match penalisation system would supplement, not overrule, the match referee. It would introduce definite consequences for shenanigans and no doubt dramatically reduce the incidents.

Any liabilities are based on facts that are not altered by a post-match review of what happened. You can't unscramble an egg. What happened and what was done at the time, whether or not they create a liability, cannot be undone.

IMHO this system could work, if FIFA wanted it to.

Maybe the question is whether or not people really do want to eliminate the shenanigans?

[Mulboyne]

FIFA can't enforce rules that the courts will overturn no matter how much sense they may make for the game. They can make a policy that post-match judgements do not entitle anyone to a replay but the courts could easily decide otherwise. FIFA tried to enforce a limit on overseas players and the right of clubs to a transfer fee on out-of-contract players. The courts ruled they couldn't.

I can envisage a case where a club is relegated because of a late penalty award. The post-match referee rules it was a dive.The club then goes to court to demand a replay because of the loss of earnings and the court agrees. That opens the door for a replay of any game where the post-match referee intervenes which would be chaos.

I generally think FIFA is a shambles who manage to avoid making tough decisions to the detriment of the game but they do have some legal limits on what they can enact That's why it is more likely that any refereeing changes will need to be introduced during the match itself. The other possibility is that governments move to introduce legislation to allow the game to enforce its own rules. That's not out of the question since a number of countries have been concerned at the concentration of power with the superclubs. They are discussing ways of introducing salary caps which would require limiting the courts' jurisdiction over the game.