The Football Thread

[Rowain]

Brazil - Colombia shows what happens if the ref is not man enough to use yellow cards early in the game.

[Gustaran]

Ok, so now Neymar has a broken vertebra and is out of the World Cup, but hey, no yellow card needed there...
Suggested punishment: Force the ref to play 10 minutes against a few Brazilian/Columbian players.

[DaveV]

The first camera angle I saw didn't look too bad, but this looks like it should have resulted in an ejection in any sport. At the end of this gif, it looks like he might be moving toward the ball, but from another angle he appears to run in the opposite direction.

[Twinkletoes89]

Would need to look at other angles but I think its a yellow card. If the ref could be bothered to actually give them out when they are deserved.

Looks like his eyes are on the ball and he's been very clumsy. Collisions like this happen a lot and unfortunately its ended up causing a serious injury when normally it doesn't.

[Molach]

"Hey I hit and killed that pedestrian on the zebra crossing, but I was a bit clumsy, and besides I had my eyes on the CD-player"
"Oh. Well I guess it is okay then. You're free to go"
said no prosecutor, ever.

I'll be a little disappointed if this doesn't have any further consequence. If cards are meant to protect players (among other things) why not put a stop to this.

---

On another note, sort of a pet peeve of mine...teams arguing with the Ref after he makes a call.
"Oh, you guys must be right. I guess I'll reverse my decicion, then"
said no football referee, ever.

..well there is another thing. Players raising their arms in the air, while the ball is in play, to signal offside - instead of defending. If it was offside, the linesman will either have seen it and raise his flag, or not have seen it and remain unaffected by any number of hands in the air.

[Ruff_Hi]

I have decided that I don't like the dutch. Just score a goal by skill and stop trying to draw free-kicks / penalties.

Edit: Bum

Speaking of pet peeves ... the one I don't like is players wagging their index finger at the ref saying 'you got it wrong'. If I was playing at this level (haha), I would just say to the ref ... 'fair enough ... but please check out the tapes'.

[Ichabod]

Netherlands look unbeatable now. I don't see how other teams can counter Proença and Irmatov, those guys are really good.

[Old Harry]

I think Netherlands have been much less annoying and thuggish this tournament (Spain game excepted), but luckily we've got Brazil to take on that crown.

I feel bad for Neymar (and I think the Columbian should have been booked if not sent off), but if his teammates hadn't spent the game kicking Rodriguez I'm sure it wouldn't have happened. If the ref won't protect your guys then the temptation to retaliate gets unbearable.

[Gaspar]

The ref in the Colombia-Brazil game was horrendous both ways. Probably should have been 9 on 9 with a non-coward officiating.

I'm definitely rooting for Germany and Argentina but I guess that was probably the final I wanted all along, since there are 3 Arsenal players on Germany and I hate the Dutch team (have nothing against Dutch people in general, felt I needed to clarify that.)

[darrelljs]

The semis are chock full of football royalty, and no final will lack for compelling storylines, but the clean old fashoined hate of Brazil vs. Argentina is too good to pass up, and I want to feel that passion from the home crowd as many times as possible.

I will say I don't understand people hating on the Orange, they attacked all game and weren't the ones playing a 5-4-1. I think it spoke volumes how glum their fans were that it made penalty kicks while the Costa Rican fans were celebrating like crazy.

Darrell