Where did I say it wasn't boneheaded? How does a team become boneheaded based off one player's actions?
The problem is that cards can be subjective, CR7 against the iranian player should have seen red, but he escaped it somehow....
I’m not defending anything I’m explaining the circumstances that just happened. Bone crushing tackles would be red cards anyway? Fair play is more likely to be determined on the type of referees you get. Some are card happy and others let things go. It’s a bizarre tactic to decide two teams fate.
Not to mention, Japan had no reason to foul in 2 of their 3 games -- vs. Colombia being a man up and today knowing the circumstances.
Thats something i did not consider. However all teams knew the rules of the tournament from the get go. Rules can't foresee how things will pan out and if the more 'deserving' team will benefit. In any case on points, goal differences and HtoH, Japan deserved to go through just as much as Senegal. It is a shame and quite ironic Japan played anti-football in the last 15min so that they could go through on Fair Play points rather than actually trying to score a goal.
Sure, the rules are the rules, whether we agree with them or not. No one is arguing that Japan got away with a rules violation or anything like that. Having said that, Japan found themselves in favorable situations to not be carded. The goalkeeper got a card in the Colombia game for time wasting when they were up a man. And then like you said, they played anti-football in the final 15 minutes vs Poland. It's a shame to say that they got through the group on those technicalities rather than merit based reasons.
Really no different than having to play the same teams, but sometimes the order in which you play them could make all the difference in whether you qualify or not.
In that case it'd make more sense to base the "fair play" only on the cards given during the match between the two teams tied otherwise, no? We'd still need another layer of review, since the referee for that match would have too much power. Perhaps the cards given in each game should be reviewed after, VAR style, to make sure the cautions were consistent. Often bigger players are punished more harshly than smaller men, for example.
Credit to you for your honesty. The most fun teams to watch for me so far have been Peru, Belgium and Russia.
They could do PK's after any tied group game, for this situation. The PK outcome would only come into play as a tiebreaker if necessary. Only needed for tied games since the head-to-head record decides it otherwise.
Yep. That's what I just posted somewhere else. Lots of unnecessary PK shootouts though. No easy solution.
Japan is not that type of team to begin with. They're less inclined to make harsh challenges, their players don't dive or protest decisions as much as other teams, they have consistently low foul and card counts, etc. Japanese football is very "fair play" oriented out of principle. Such naiveté in their play philosophy has always cost them dearly against more cunning opposition. This is actually the first time I've seen them benefit for taking the clean approach. Not that I think Senegal was very much at fault in this respect, I should clarify.
you all speak as if yellow cards were totally random. They're not. Tackles that are reckless is a pretty agreed upon standard, and teams that do that are more likely to get yellow cards. Similarly for persistent infringment. yes, referees differ some, but not that much. In any event, it's better to have something that's correlated with clean play than have a coin flip.
Can't help but laugh at that statement. When we've had just 8 years ago a foot to the chest in a WC final be called a yellow card, I think there are plenty of inconsistencies in the ways refs call games. Some let things go at first, some like to set the tone early. When you have a KO spot decided by 1 YC, yeah, a coin flip is actually a much fairer method.
Nothing but respect to Senegal. They deserved to go through, but so does Colombia and Japan. Sadly, this group was only going to have 2 players go to the next round. See you in the next world cup Senegal! Keep your chins up and you'll have a promising future in football!
Poland is the most disappointing team of the tournament. That does not Valderrama...I like the guy...
their advantage was playing against 10 men for an entire match in their only win. They then lost to one of the worst teams in this WC in pretty much a do or die match. Make of that what you will. Anyways Senegal only have them selves to blame for letting both Japan and Colombia off the hook.
Yerry Mina Man of the Match #Budweiser #MiCorazónTricolor #Rusia2018 pic.twitter.com/96rpBOpZAZ— Materire (@Materire_) June 28, 2018