I only got into watching football during the 2002 world cup, though I played it in college and high school. 2002 really teased my interest in watching the game, and of the things that shocked me most was the gross bias for the Korean team during that first world cup.
When I later watched the 2006 world cup, I half expected tons of grossly favorable/biased calls for Germany. Instead, it seemed like the officials went completely the other direction in trying to get Germany out of the tournament. But I'll get to 2006 in a bit. After 2006 world cup, I was majorly "jonesing" for more world cup football action, and a guy at my local bar here owns a collection of essentially every world cup quarter/semi/final matches that I've been borrowing to feed my "addiction". And I noticed that Germany in particular has had so many very poor calls go against them in the world cup. I'll list what I mean:
1966 finals: I had heard about this long before seeing it, as it's one of the more historical bad calls throughout world cup history. You know the deal England hits the woodwork and the ball bounces down near the line, the ref asks the line official if it went across the line and he affirms that it did, even though it's well known today it never did. It's the decisive goal in the match. From an article I read recently from the BBC, apparently several of the Englishmen playing in the game later came clean about the incident in support of the German's claims that the ball didn't go across the line. Very classy of them.
1970 semifinals: Germany(3) versus Italy(4). Early on in this game you can see an extremely dubious and dangerous tackle on Beckenbauer that perhaps should have been an ejection. If I were a betting man, it looked like the Italians were trying to put him out of commission. They almost succeeded later on with another vicious tackle that occurred just on or just inside the penalty area. No sending off and no penalty kick was awarded, despite at the very least "part of the foul" was occurring in the penalty area. Beckenbauer is seriously injured but has to play on because they have no subs left. Another incident in this game involved a deflected ball that zipped across the Italians' goal mouth. Gerd Muller rushes in to put the ball away but he gets pushed off his line by a tackle from the goal keeper. The goal keeper does not even touch the ball, only bumps off Muller, which, as far as I know, this should have been a penalty kick for Germany. No such luck.
1986 finals: Argentina(3)- Germany (2) in the 23rd or so minute, an Argentine has the ball knocked out from under him, but instead of fighting for ball rolling away from him, he turns and takes an obvious dive. Argentina converts the set piece and that is the one decisive goal they needed to win. Again, another decisive goal. (I'd call these two teams about equal now after the Klinsmann "equalizer" 4 years later)
1982 semifinals: France(3)-Germany(3)
Two major incidents, including Platini dive that leading to score, and what looks like a completely onside goal for Germany ruled as offside. Germany does win this one, however.
1982 finals: Italy(3) Germany(1). One of the most ridiculous dives I've ever seen occurred in the penalty box, and Italy is awarded a PK. And then one fo the goals scored later on for Italy was actually offside, though I can't completely blame the refs on that one, as we know it's not always easy to see offsides in "real time"; however, after the first ridiculous penalty and the offside goal, it seemed as if the officials/luck had declared Italy the winner already.
1990 quarter finals: Netherlands(1) - Germany(2).
Rijkaard delivers a very late and very questionable tackle on Voller. Then, he is seen spitting, at two different instances, spitting on Voller twice. By some bizarre logic, though, Rijkaard AND Voller get sent off, ridiculous by any measure. Germany wins this one, however.
On to Germany's bid for 2006, which should be fresh on peoples minds. This is what lead me to questioning FIFA's con job of Germany in the past, here's what tipped me off:
In Germany's first match against Costa Rica, there are two goals made by Costa Rica that were offside. One was clearly offside and the other was just a bit offside. Allowing one of the goals is forgivable error, but allowing both seemed to smell very fishy. So much for home field advantage.
Then Germany proceeds without much incident, though they do get a Swede sent off for holding which was a debatable call, but it seemed Germany had pretty much already sealed that game up in the first 15 minutes.
Then the incident in the Argentina game. A couple of poor sport Argentine players attack a couple of the German players. The broadcast in the US don't show much of the actual perpetrators, though Heinze is clearly seen swinging punches at German players. Later on videos show what actually happened, with three players being implicated and having actions taken against them: Frings, Cufre, and Rodriguez being indicated as the "major perpatrators"
All the "punches" to me seemed to be more like "nannyslaps" and nothing serious, from both frings and the Argentines that actually took swings. The only really serious attack was what started it all. Metsecker was laying on the ground after the victory exhausted and Cufre ran up and stomped on his nuts. IMO, they should have either just punished Cufre severely or punished all those involved. However, from the additional videos there are at least 3-4 Argentines seen swing/kicking, again nothing too serious, so if FIFA was going to go after Frings they should have went after the rest too, particularly Heinze who was clearly seen in all the original feeds as wildly taking swings at people. Oh, and this here also did not result in any punishment either for Argentina, when they must have obviously had the video tape(everyone saw this in the USA feed, that's for sure)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTmEN...h=klose%20slap
No punishment? Again, it's a nancyslap, but it was clear that FIFA really approached this whole game investigation with a heavy bias against Germany. As a side note, Cruz, the guy Frings hit, says he wasn't even punched at all. And he's right, he was nancyslapped. Heh.
Then we come to the Italy game. In the early portion of this game, there is a header cross in the penalty box that is batted down by an Italian defender's elbow. It does not really look intentional at all, but my knowledge of the rules is that intention does not matter, only if the player/team was advantage by the handball. Well, this was a two on one break away that could have easily been a score and the handball occurred in the penalty box. No call, though. Then, around the 80th minute or so, a foul is committed well within the Italian penalty area, which should have resulted in a penalty kick, but for some odd reason the ref puts it several feet out of the penalty box and awards a free kick instead of a penalty? I'm still at a loss for what the heck was going on there.
Are there any other countries that have a history of bad luck or outright bias or a lot of "favorable" ones? I'm particularly curious about the USSR, because apparently they have had some excellent teams but have rarely got far into the World Cup, and after seeing Germany's seemingly biased treatment over the World Cup years, it makes me wonder if they got something similar?
Edit: I fixed a year, and want to add that I'm not sure what the old offside rule(s) was.
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FIFA: history of cheating Germany? Any others?
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