Gary Lineker on twitter said, "Brazil's man of the match, tough call between Neymar and the referee!"
i'm not saying you can't moan at the ref - i was moaning myself at the time. but it is nonsense to say the game was fixed, as some above have suggested, and that they might not bother with the rest of the tournament as a result. you can (laughably) say neymar wasn't clinical but he had two chances and scored two goals. he wasn't at his best last night, none of the brazilians were, and i don't think they are a great side (i'm not convinced there is any great sides in the tournament), but its irrelevant if you think the keeper should do better or not. he was still clinical when presented with the chances. and i really do not believe that was a red card challenge. there will be a hell of a lot of red cards if that's given. lee dixon got it spot on.
Penalty decision: wrong - clearly in slow mo from the side that he doesn't get pulled down BUT if you look from where the ref is you can see Lovren's hand on Fred's shoulder that looks to be pulling him down. Poor, poor decision, but it was a difficult angle and this is hardly the first time that penalties have been given like that. You have to give "credit" (credit is the wrong word) to Fred for getting his dive spot on for the ref. Neymar's yellow card: correct decision - do the England test. I would ahve been fuming if it had been an England player red carded for that. It would have been harsh. I agree that it's borderline, but I think you have to say that sort of incident should be a yellow Croatia's disallowed goal: correct decision - soft, soft foul yes. But the rule is now that if you jump into the 'keeper in the six yard box, you will give away a foul. Yes, here the 'keeper had messed up and the Croatian had jumped higher, but that doesn't matter - the key is that he has jumped into the 'keeper. Those are the referee instructions given from on high, it's not the ref who has made a poor decision there, his hands are tied. So I think all in all Croatia were hard done by on luck, and for their performance deserved a draw, but actually the ref got two of the three big decisions correct.
On Neymars elbow, he took a clear look to see where the player was and then raised his arms, that is by the letter of the law dangerous play so he should have gone for it without question. the penalty was a joke, never in a million years was that a penalty. as for the disallowed goal, JC had fumbled the ball before any contact was made and in any case JC was moving towards the croat player, not the other way around. complete joke of a referee.
oh well, might as well close this thread now then if nobody else can have an opinion, Rob almighty has spoken!
I haven't done anything, Rob is getting the hump with me for keeping on topic now, I didn't even refer to him in my first post!
Well I've just watched the full game which I recorded, I have to say I completely agree with Rob on each of the three big decisions! I thought the ref had a better game than the vast majority of our match referees last season!
completely agree with rob's assessment above and the whole thing has been blown out of proportion for some reason, probably because it was the hosts and for some reason, quite a few people don't rate neymar and look for any opportunity to take a pot. its funny guru, but had those incidents happened in a game featuring norwich city, you'd have said that on the penalty, our player 'shouldn't have put his hand on fred as it gave the ref a chance to give it', on the potential red card, that it was 'something out of nothing' and that the disallowed goal was 'justified as you can't challenge the keeper these days'. guarantee it.
er yeah after JK'S post (nothing against JK btw) so how is that playing the victim? And anyway what did i do to deserve Robs post in the first place? I noticed you skirted around that.
The people suggesting the ref has bottled it to favour Brazil are indeed blowing things out of proportion a bit. However, although I don't think it was a 'fix' or anything, it wasn't a penalty, and Neymar could easily have been sent off for what was in my opinion, a premeditated 'elbow'. The disallowed goal on the other hand, was probably correct.
don't think i would supers, because some of them were so clear cut wrong. Not being funny but Norwich fans have done their fair share of whining in the past about ref decisions, as do most football fans about their clubs.
Well it's obvious to me, after that response to Supers, that it is totally pointless to argue with Guru because he does not tell the truth! Say what you like Guru, you'll just be talking to yourself! I bet even you don't know when you're lying!
The match was fixed by the officials and for anyone to believe otherwise based on the shocking refereeing performance is simply naive at best or incredibly stupid at worst! Every key decision in the game went the way of Brazil so we may as well hand them the trophy now.
so clear cut, that not everyone agrees with you? err, that doesn't make any sense. everyone feels the penalty was very harsh - that's about the only thing anyone agrees on.
