A penalty kick is awarded if any of the above ten offences is committed by a player inside his own penalty area, irrespective of the position of the ball, provided it is in play. One of them is '' holds an opponent '' This is where the refs are to blame as they allow holding to be punished only with warnings but how often do you see a ref have the balls to award a penalty for holding, like at a corner.
Again, if you have rules which officials "customarily" enforce erratically, or rules whose meaning eludes general agreement, it amounts to not having rules at all, and telling officials "faff around and call pens depending on what you had for breakfast this morning--or who picked up the tab." The charitable conclusion is that the rules are made by a bunch of completely incompetent f**kwads. I can't believe I thought France Spurs were going to walk this one. Put a cockerel on the shirt and the best you can hope for is a nervy win. First they dress like Spurs, then they start to play like them. "Be careful what you pretend to be, because you become what you pretend to be." "Clothes make the man."
"I dived, but not for the penalty" - Arjen Robben ...in other words... "I admit cheated throughout the ninety minutes, but I'm still going to bullshit people by making out that I stopped cheating in stoppage time." - Arjen Robben
Giroud and Benzema have been crap. Pogba's class. France have been very close to a goal three times in five minutes. And right on cue Pogba scores. Reverse announcer's curse.
This kind of performance is what I normally see from Benzema. I thought he might have a worldy tournament though after his recent form
The teams with the lead that keep the pressure up have won. The ones that sit back have lost, without too many exceptions. Players are too accurate and too fast, certainly at the knockout stages of the world cup, to sit inside your penalty box and hope they don't score. Nobody in the while wide world thinks Algeria will KO Germany. Nor do I, but I'm certainly hoping! Come on Nabil! Avenge 1982! (EDIT!) The fix is in. No Bentaleb in the starting lineup, when everyone knows Spurs are the key to advancing.
The rules obviously leave aspects open to interpretation or how the referees personality views each situation, as what one referees views as excessive, another would view as fair. This can't be changed unless they bring in video technology. They could have a referee watching the game upstairs, away from play and in constant contact with the referee on the field of play. That way the referee gets actual help from someone who has the benefit of what is seen on video (instant replays) and it would make the best of what are fairly poorly written rules to start with. Although its just the nature of the game that once the rules are written, referees vary in how they officiate and players try to trick the officials. Until we move more towards technology then nothing much will change, or in the future androids will be created to be referees, similar to that show (Almost Human). Humans (that are almost human) can be trusted more!
I agree about video technology being necessary. I still think a concerted effort needs to be made to make the rules as clear as possible and to get the referees to enforce the rules as written as consistently as possible. The failure to do both is the enemy of good officiating and fair results. (Mind you, the most sincere effort in the world cannot result in perfectly written rules, or perfectly consistent enforcement of them. But what we have now is criminally short of the "most sincere effort" standard. ) Meanwhile Algeria are unlucky not to have a goal, and could easily have had four. Germany's lucky, as usual. "Ozil, not going back with his runner." Now there's a surprise. Make it five goals Algeria could have had. Two times the German keeper has gotten to a ball first by a hair twenty yards outside of the box. You can see why Mueller scores so much. He knifed in to get a header over the back of a full back few others would have tried for, and could easily have scored with it. Germany continue to get comprehensively outplayed--not that it will end up mattering. But now Germany are unlucky not to score. Neuer's still been Germany's best player so far.
Germany are suffering from Belgiumitis. Four centre-halves playing at the back, exposed constantly by anything played over the top. Lucky not to be behind. Really positive stuff by Algeria, who are working very, very hard.
Germany are playing very high up the field, trying to pressurise Algeria. Their problem is they keep giving the ball away and their defenders aren't the quickest ( sounds sort of familiar ) luckily for them, Nueur has been both alert, and lucky!..
Algeria have been very lively and fun to watch. Germany look like they know they've made it into the last 15 WC quarterfinals.
