[Snail]

balls we've lost

[Mobius]

Bye bye to England, then...

[Rodo]

Well then...if we win, we've got to face that white monster.

Can't wait for the next match with Mexico.

[karajorma]

I've always been a fan of just sticking a chip in the ball so we can tell when it's crossed the line.

Today has not made me change my opinion in the slightest.


I may however donate money to Uruguayan charities for the blind. They obviously have quite a few people suffering from that affliction if the ref was the best they had.

[Wobble73]

We were robbed of that Lampard goal, if that had been allowed, our boys would have had more heart for the game!  

[QuantumDelta]

If we had F1 level tech in Football almost all of the central Europeans, and South Americans would never win a cup ever again.

Think about it.
No dives, no getting away with fouls or sneaky handballs.
No dodgey line calls.
No way to 'play to the ref'.

Personally I'd love it, that's everything I hate about football gone.

[Wobble73]

Don't talk to me about F1 either, a german won there today too! I thought it was an omen!!! 

[Angelus]

Yeah, Win!
It is quite a weekend for Germany, the F1 Victory and the Football Victory. 

Nice match, though i doubt that the English team could have done anything to change the outcome, even if the referee would have seen that the ball was over the line and thus a goal was scored.

[TopAce]

Mexico - Argentina 0:1 so far

Now it's another referee case on screen. If you aren't watching it, please do.

No doubt it'll be YouTubed and discussed in the future.

Earlier in the thread, I summarized my arguments for video refereeing. Now I'm leaning towards implementing a video refereeing system more so than earlier. I don't watch football very often, but I'm sure that there aren't so many and decisive mistakes normally. South Africa must have a debilitating aura or something. We've had big goalkeeper mistakes earlier, and now the referees.

[Mongoose]

Not that I'm a general fan of the sport, but the matches I've seen have been as convincing an argument for some sort of replay/review system as I can think of.  I mean, maybe not for your normal leagues or whatever...but this is the most popular sporting event in the world, and FIFA is willing to let blatant mistakes decide it?  The NFL, NBA, and NHL all use replay to some extent, and tennis has implemented what's proven to be a very effective challenge system. Hell, even baseball, by far the most tradition-bound and human-element-oriented of our sports, finally implemented replay for boundary calls a year ago, and with the blown first-base call costing a pitcher a perfect game last month, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see it expanded to base calls in the near future.  The technology exists to eliminate some of the ambiguity of the game...if there can be sensors in curling stones during the Olympics, surely the World Cup should be able to get its act together too.

[The E]

I think we're going to see some of those changes after this World Cup.

[Kosh]

Indeed.

But the Referees desperately need better eyes. THAT WAS A GOAL, DAMMIT!

A devestating loss like this can't simply be explained away with bad calls. England just didn't play that well. For example in the first 20 minutes England allowed Germany to take 4 shots, one of these resulting in a goal, compared with England taking no shots. The bad calls doesn't explain why the English defence allowed so many shots in the first place, and why the English offence wasn't able to effectively coordinate (bad passes mostly).

[The E]

(For the record, I'm german)

And while the german team was better than the english one, that goal could have been something of a turning point in the match.
At the end of the day, I want a match to be decided by player skill, not referee fiat.

[Kosh]

Yeah, but the fact remains England just didn't play as well, and frankly deserved to lose. I'm still watching the rebroadcast online, but so far that's my assessment.

EDIT: And that second goal at 30 minutes is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. A very well executed play.

EDIT2: that disallowed second england goal at 38' was a really bad call, but even if it was allowed then England still would have lost 4-2, only slightly less embarrasing.

[The E]

The assumption that the game would have proceeded the same if the goal had been counted is false.

[Rodo]

And so we'll be playing with Germany for the next round, hope we get it this time instead of what happened in the last World Cup.

[swashmebuckle]

...and North America is wiped out in the 2nd round

Would have been a much better match without the offside goal, but all credit to Argentina--their quarterfinal with Germany should be great.

[Kosh]

The assumption that the game would have proceeded the same if the goal had been counted is false.

Given the way England was playing defence it probably would have. Even in the second half they were still giving lots of open looks.

[Rodo]

Goals make the difference, most of the DT's play safe on this games because is "win or go home", so when a team makes a goal, the other team moves in to even that, leaving a LOT of space to use for the other team playing counteroffensive tactics.

What killed England is the fact that Germany scored first and then their evening goal was nullified, making the team uneasy about it and wanting to revert the situation as fast as they could, this made them leave a lot of space for Germany to use.
Aside from that, you got to give all the credit to Germany's offensive line, they made almost every move against the UK goalkeep effective, and that scares the **** out of me, they just don't seem to miss.

[Flipside]

I call it '66 Karma' Because Jeff Hursts goal in 66 was widely regarded not to have crossed the line