Watch the fouls and tell me none were deserved. Not to defend the guy - he can be awful - but that tackle from Pablo was vicious and unwarranted, just a stupid thing to do. After that night I never wanted to see Mastroeni in an important match again. http://www.fifa.com/newscentre/videos/player.html#ch=g06&id=526949 FWIW, DeRossi's elbow looks entirely intentional and Pope's second yellow was also deserved.
I'm fine with this guy as ref. Better to face it now and learn how to deal with it. And we'd damn well better have learned the lessons taught by the two straight reds we drew in the group stage.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. Pope deserved the 2nd yellow. I was just talking about Pablo's red. By the standards of that Cup, that was a bad call.
I may be the only one who thought he called a reasonably good game against Italy. The two biggest errors in the game were 1. Pope's FIRST yellow was soft, and 2. Totti took a dive/flop to earn the FK that eventually turned into a goal. Honestly, I can't complain about any of the sendings off, and a less experienced ref would have burned us with Italy's constant diving that occurred in the second half.
Pablo's red was correct IMO. It also, situationally, has to be the stupidest tackle in the history of USA soccer. That game was there for the taking.
Prediction: Phantom red card to the U.S. in the first half. Once the game is CLEARLY in Spain's control the U.S. is gifted a penalty in return. We lose, and the conspiracy theories go on...FOR-EV-ER.
Im an Uruguayan living in the U.S. Larrionda is a ref. That's all there is to say. You have to be objective and not just think that if he screwed you once, he only screws you, and that he's going to screw you again. He's ********ed up my team in important matches REPEATEDLY, but there's a lot of mafia inside soccer in Uruguay. As an Uruguayan, HE probably wants Spain to win, since there's a lot of hatred towards the U.S. there for some reason. When Bush came over, you should've seen the reaction(although he even got that reaction here in the States). He's a good ref. Of course he's going to make mistakes. But they're probably going to be for both sides. He's human
Human enough to produce another bullshit red card against as American player (one of our more important players is now out for the final). Also, his assistants were shite as well.
Looked to me like Bradley was totally in the rights - play to the ball, cleats down, below the knee... aggressive, maybe, red carded? no...