[Kazan]

guess i was wrong about czech being an exception

go home USMNT and hang you heads in shame for most pathetic showing

fire arena

[Rictor]

Isn't Czech Republic ranked among the Top 5 teams in the world? What the hell happened? I guess Ghana is who I'll be rooting for now, unless Croatia squeeks through in front of Australia.

[Kazan]

Czech were rated #2, USA #5

[Shade]

Finally had a chance to review that penalty. Didn't look like a dive, but whether that was a penalty was debatable. They were just both vying for the ball. Ref must have thought Pimpong was being forced down, which is a free kick, and it did look like that from some angle - but didn't from others.

So I dunno... it could have been either way - Ref saw a free kick and, well, a free kick in the box is a penalty. No card was given, so he obviously didn't think it was particularly serious. But anything that can give a free kick can also give a penalty if it's in the box, so it didn't really have to be. I'm sure it will be reviewed to no end.

Oh, and world rankings mean exactly nothing for close teams. Can give a general idea of good, average or bad, but that's it, once you get below a difference of +/- 10 places it's entirely arbitrary.

[Kazan]

actually only offenses that produce DFKs result in penalties

[Night Hammer]

guess i was wrong about czech being an exception

go home USMNT and hang you heads in shame for most pathetic showing

fire arena

wasnt neccesarily a pathetic showing, granted they played like ass, but their group was not an easy one, they were just outclassed



read somewhere, Klinsmann was coming to coach the US team soon

[Shade]

Well, holding a person is one of the offenses that warrant a DFK, so in this case it would still have been a penalty if, as he did in this case, the ref saw it as a free kick.

[Kazan]

he clearly wasn't holding

[Shade]

Not clearly. I do agree he was not, but from some angles it looked like he was, and some angles it looked like he wasn't. I would not have awarded a penalty in that situation based on what I could see, but as always, the ref makes the call based on what he can see from his position and not based on what we can see from the TV pictures.

[Kazan]

yeah it was a BS PK

we had many chances to get it back and we just couldn't finish

if we could finish we would have won

[Shade]

True, it was actually a pretty well played match from the US. Aside from the chronic goal-missing thing.

[Kazan]

and some chronic misconnecting of passes

we just weren't up to it in the last match - we didn't have the magic we had in the italy match and we needed it

[Shade]

Woah, what a kick! Croatia 1-0 Australia. Absolutely amazing shot. Of course, we all know what that means... final result will be 1-3

[Black Wolf]

Rat bastard!

EDIT - And a dirty tackling bunch of rat bastards at that. That was disgraceful that the ref didn't pick it up.

[Shade]

You could've gotten a penalty there if the ref had been awake. Hugs are nice and all, but not while you're in the box trying to score.

[Night Hammer]

and some chronic misconnecting of passes

we just weren't up to it in the last match - we didn't have the magic we had in the italy match and we needed it

what magic was that? i seem to remember them drawing because of an own goal, and doing nothing to help themselves


Edit: very nice goal by Croatia

[aldo_14]

whoaff... 1-nil Japan.

[Shade]

Oh my, Japan 1-0 Brazil. Very nice goal too.

[Edit] Umm... yeah. What he said.... I type too slow

[Shade]

Australian penalty - absolutely correct too, holding and hands on the ball.

And 1-1. Deserved.

[Edit] Oops, should've edited my earlier post, didn't realize I had the latest in my excitement Anyway, awesome game this. Beats Brazil-Japan currently, though just by a bit.

[aldo_14]

1-1 Ronaldo.  Crikey, the fat bloke sticks it in the onion bag.