How Barcelona defied the odds and failed to win La Liga for a decade A little history from the early 1980s...
Fun facts: Piqué will now miss the season opener in La Liga for the 2nd straight season. He had picked up his 5th yellow in the last match of the 2013-14 campaign vs. Atlético and was thus ruled out vs. Elche in Jornada 1 a year ago. Neymar has never completed a pre-season with us in 3 years: in 2013, he arrived diagnosed with anemia. In 2014, he was out with the fractured vertebra from the WC. And now, he's got the mumps.
i think every team is out to get barcelona while barca is playing to keep up from last seasons success, so the pressure will be on them than the others
Pique expected to miss at least 4 games based on insult to ref (or to linesman): http://www.sport-english.com/en/new...-pique-banned-for-between-and-matches-4438636
This is the kind of crap from Pique that Puyol wouldn't have tolerated. Puyol was good at making sure Pique's focus stayed on what was under his control. Fsck.
Well Pique said those were not his "exact words" but that's hardly a reassuring denial. Last season was the first one Pique played well without Puyol by his side, and it started with him benched several games by Lucho, so hopefully he can have another good one even after this.
Doesn't feel that good with Bartra and Adriano (probably) in the lineup for the next game. None of them have convinced so far this pre-season. Hopefully the whole team picks it up. When is Jordi Alba back?
The length of suspension is pretty ridiculous though even if those were his exact words. When I first heard over 4 matches I thought it was a joke by Marca or something. I realize it is 2015 and people these days get out of bed each morning just looking for things to get offended by, but if you're a football ref or linesman you're supposed to have a thicker skin than your average feeble-minded individual. Even one match is too much just for swearing. Heck, the red card is a joke! Yellow card is sufficient. I won't even get into how this is such a bad precedent to set in the sport because of the difficulty to catch "offenders" through video replay like you can for, say, a bad tackle.
I dunno. Players have insulted refs before, and gotten rough punishment. Surely it is part of Pique's job to know what he can do and what he cannot do. I'm not saying people don't get offended too easily, but I'm saying that Pique should know better. He is a professional footballer who let his team down, and it's not like this was a risk in which he could have gained something. Either what he said was going to be ignored by the refs, or he would get some sort of punishment. I fully support Pique, and last season he really raised his game, but the team could do without this kinda buffoonery. Ultimately, I guess it's a matter of opinion: what kinda things are part of the game. I think it wouldn't hurt football a bit if insults of this level towarded to refs were weeded out by solid bans like a couple of matches. I think the game would flow better if refs were more respected, and I don't think a linesman getting an offside right or wrong needs to hear anything about his mother etc.
Choice of words and where you direct them is key. And not just in futbol/soccer. I remember years ago during a baseball telecast a player was caught stealing second base and then got tossed out of the game by the umpire for arguing the call. Former player and Hall of Famer Joe Morgan was the tv analyst and he said that arguing alone won't get a player tossed. It's how/where he directs his wording. "That call you made is horseshit" will not get a player ejected. "You are horseshit" will. So perhaps if Pique had said "I shit on that call you made" he may have stayed in the game, perhaps only receiving a yellow.
For whatever reason, Arsenal fans who enter the Barcelona forum have been the worst for as long as I've been a member of this message board.
There's a back story on Pique and ref Velasco Carballo, who sent him off in 2012 vs. Sporting, allegedly, said Pique, because he had argued in the tunnel at halftime about a no-PK call on Keita: http://v1.sport360.com/article/barcelona-defender-gerard-pique-hits-out-premeditated-sending Edit: Also, we're not appreciating how rare it is for a ref give a straight red for dissent -- and for abuse at his assistant no less, meaning Carballo couldn't have checked with his AR before pulling out the red. I think there's an appeal case to be made. Edit2: on watching the 2012 play, I think it was a correct call... Piqué didn't have much of a case then.
Did not know about the backstory, but did read that FCB has filed an appeal of the red, but again based on Pique's assertion that he did not say quite the exact words the ref quoted. Perhaps he said something more like . . .?
Pique gets 4 game ban. http://www.espnfc.us/barcelona/story/2571040/barcelona-defender-gerard-pique-receives-four-match-ban
I believe so. But the red card came very quick after Pique "attacked" the linesman. Didn't look like the linesman had time to communicate with the ref.
Doesn't seem like the type of thing that can be decided over Bluetooth in under 3 seconds. I mean, how would that conversation go exactly?
"Toss him." "Done." In all seriousness, Carballo was probably most irritated by Piqué going out of his way to jog over to harass the AR. More than what he actually said.
really? Unlike an offside this is a subjective call. So if the ref doesn't ask the AR "why?" then the AR essentially has the final say. He might as well be carrying the cards and the ref is just out there for the exercise. Not buying that one. Yeah, that was a douche move by Pique. Although it is also a move that is done fairly regularly and almost never generates a straight red. No matter how you look at it, it comes across as poor/inconsistent refereeing. They should appeal.