So I relented and I finally watched most of a game. This afternoon Ghana was playing the USA. If it was not the greatest soccer around it was still an exciting match, for all the reasons that were missing in, say, the French team games. That is, both teams put their hearts out, until the very last second of the game, even though the US was visibly exhausted for the prolongation. Briefly, even though I rooted for the US it was clear that the Ghana team had better control of the situation and deserved to win. Sorry for the US fans!And yet, this will be for me a memorable game because it gave us one of those moments when you feel all that is great about soccer-football, all that makes it worth watching it, at least at the World Cup level.
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| Aerial Goalies |
And thus we got this stunning image of the two goalies of each team, fighting an aerial battle for the ball. Awesome! A spine chilling moment if any! That is, if you like soccer and understand it, and what was at stake. Maybe it is becasue I sort of ignored most of this Cup but this moment will be for me the memory of 2010 in South Africa.
I enjoyed it also. We lost to a better team, but not for lack of effort. The photographs are keepers.
ReplyDeleteThose are great and rare photos of two goalies hand to hand.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of sounding like a bitter loser, I saw a match that hand Ghana winning at all cost, including "tackles" and "blocking" that was less than sportsmanlike. A Ghana defender would intentionally run over an American if they were anywhere near the goal and then look around to see if they'd been caught and penalized. This lessoned after the US scored on a penalty but still was allowed to go on.
That's it! After 3 consecutive games with goals being given or lost because of either poor refereeing or orders from FIFA I refuse to watch any more.
ReplyDeleteIn the offside goal awarded to Argentina the referee was talking to someone who had access to the video feed & refused to change the decision.
If the referee's ruling can not be changed then why wear a headset?
Unless of course the FIFA officials want to have the power to decide games.
It's such a silly game anyway with players falling all over the place at the merest touch & important games decided by penalty shots. What a bunch of wimps!
No more for me.
The refs wear headsets to speak to each other (the line referees and a fourth referee). Officially, none of them has access to video.
ReplyDeleteEvery World Cup has bad calls, but hopefully there were enough this time that some sort of change will be made.
For every USA - Ghana and Uruguay - South Korea it seems we have a Mexico - Argentina and Germany - England. AWFUL AWFUL OBVIOUS Calls. Disgraceful. Then you wonder why Americans dislike the game. The diva dives are bad enough but the refs have really poisoned some key matches. At least in the USA - Slovenia match it made no difference in the end (the US ended up in 1st place anyway so a victory over a tie was not a factor).
ReplyDeleteYou can ridicule Baseball for having fat guys but a least in that sport you can't score by falling down on the field and crying in fake anguish.
I agree with comments that refereeing work has been bad.
ReplyDeleteStill, I considered the American team to be slow and not very competent (to include the coach, btw), and I'm only surprised that that the U.S. got as far as it did, before losing to.... Ghana(?)Final proof of our mediocrity, I'd say...