It's heatin' up!
Jun. 25th, 2006 11:23 pmIf anyone has any doubt about the increasing ferocity of the World Cup effort, one only needs a look at this scoreboard:

A scene of carnage indeed!
12 yellow cards, 4 red. If you actually watched the match, you know that there was a lot of post-whisle insults, pushing and shoving. The overall tone of the match was very negative, non sportsman-like.
Both teams played a very nasty game and sucked big time for diving and violence.
The Russian ref made some fucking aweful calls. A straight in-fly kung-fu-style kick to the face in the penalty zone -- nothing, not even a warning. A touch of a hand -- yellow card (second one, no less!). He also stopped a very successful Portugese offensive play because one of the their midfielders has been fouled. And he did it on the request from the Dutch, who stood to get a goal in their net should the offensive play have worked out. A good ref would have waited for the play to end, before blowing a whistle. And after that, the ref had given the ball to the Dutch (or the Dutch refused to give the ball back, depending on who's looking), even though there were not in posession at the whistle time! Very bad call right there, and a disgusting decision by the Dutch team.
The ref sucked because he could not get a grip on the match. However, to be fair to him, the players didn't give him much choice with their down-right animal behaviour.
Overall, besides a brilliant goal by Maniche, the game was by far the lowest point of the tournament so far.

A scene of carnage indeed!
12 yellow cards, 4 red. If you actually watched the match, you know that there was a lot of post-whisle insults, pushing and shoving. The overall tone of the match was very negative, non sportsman-like.
Both teams played a very nasty game and sucked big time for diving and violence.
The Russian ref made some fucking aweful calls. A straight in-fly kung-fu-style kick to the face in the penalty zone -- nothing, not even a warning. A touch of a hand -- yellow card (second one, no less!). He also stopped a very successful Portugese offensive play because one of the their midfielders has been fouled. And he did it on the request from the Dutch, who stood to get a goal in their net should the offensive play have worked out. A good ref would have waited for the play to end, before blowing a whistle. And after that, the ref had given the ball to the Dutch (or the Dutch refused to give the ball back, depending on who's looking), even though there were not in posession at the whistle time! Very bad call right there, and a disgusting decision by the Dutch team.
The ref sucked because he could not get a grip on the match. However, to be fair to him, the players didn't give him much choice with their down-right animal behaviour.
Overall, besides a brilliant goal by Maniche, the game was by far the lowest point of the tournament so far.