Just a question.
When is a high foot a high foot? Had Walker headed the guys foot, the goal is ruled out for dangerous play. Miss it by a fraction and it’s a goal, yet still high.
Yeah, I've watched it a dozen times trying to figure out if it should have been a foul.
If you want a neutral's perspective, I think it's borderline but correctly not a foul.
From one angle, it looks like Walker has position and as he goes to head it Perisic sticks his foot from behind Walker to get it and swings it dangerously across Walkers head, barely missing him but could easily have injured him. Were it not for Perisic sticking that foot out, Walker would have headed it.
From another angle, it looks like while Walker has goalside position the two players are more moving in parallel across the goal. The way the ball curves it ends up being delivered away from the goal to Perisic's side. Perisic is sticking his foot out not to take it away from Walker but simply because that's the only chance he has of getting to it. Walker is too far away to have a chance. His attempted header is too late and too short and was never going to get there. Perisic ends up semi-kicking it over Walker's head only because Walker is diving towards him.
I think the second angle is more accurate. It's close but because of the way the ball was played (short and behind Perisic if he were facing the goal) Perisic actually has position and did not go through Walker to get the bill. And it looks like Walker was never actually touched and his reaction is “Crap, I got beat.” Not “Holy crap, the guy almost took my head off how is that not a foul?”
Anyway, decent performance from England. They lost their way a bit in the second half, but **** happens. They were also playing out of heir minds for stretches in the first half. On balance, they gave a good effort, the game could have gone either way, but to me Croatia was just a tad better overall.
England had a great draw to get this far, but you can only play what’s in front of you. I don’t know that they were overachieving heroes or anything, but that is partly because I believe the team is fairly talented. What they didn’t do was get into some weird tabloid scandals, play like ass, do something stupid and get knocked out early, or choke horribly in a shootout so that’s a plus. They played like pros and it took a good team to beat them... and just barely. That’s all you can ask. I wish I could say the same for the US Men’s team who didn’t even make it.
