Lol, we are now talking about Spain having no service for Torres. Sadly it is all too accurate in this game.
Busquets should have conceded a penalty there. Like Barca, you have to have one of your players shot or stabbed to get penalty called against them.
Leave it to Spain to provide the first goalless draw of the tournament. Of course, as soon as I type that all out, Navas scores. And makes me look amateurish for criticizing the substitution.
When all you do is pass laterally, what service are you going to get? He made a great run behind the defense and Iniesta completely missed the pass. When Spain play like this they are very dependent on midfielders scoring because a lone striker (and the only player in the box) is going to draw all the attention. They're not doing that.
Wow. Italy scores through Balotelli. Bonucci immediately puts his hand over Mario's mouth so he can't say anything. Silently silencing his critics, haha. Hilarious.
What a farce. Busquets has about 50% of Eduardo's shirt in some kind of judo throw, no penalty. Two minutes later, Navas scores despite being offside.
Just caught the last half hour, I thought Modric looked superb. He deserves to be playing against that calibre of opponent as often as possible.
I think it's still a grey area - surely he gains an advantage by being in an offside position on the first ball, in that it enables him to be ahead of the defence on the second ball? Otherwise, why not line up 3 or 4 players 30 yards out and leave them there all game? Only need to knock it up to one onside player who then goes beyond them and squares it.
It's been that way for ages though. I remember people (including me) making the same argument for RvN's second goal against the Czechs in the 2004 Euros!
only saw it live and quickly on the follow up replays but I thought Iniesta looked a touch off on the first ball even before Navas was played in could be wrong though
No argument from me mate, but... http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/mar/23/football.comment3 And third, is the player 'gaining an advantage'? This last point is specific, and is not what Match of the Day seem to think it is. It applies only to an offside player playing a ball that rebounds to him from an opponent, the post or the crossbar. If he does not play the ball from the rebound, then he is not penalised for being in that offside position. Nothing else counts as 'gaining'. ... and ... http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/12/15/offside-goal/ To sum up, 'gaining' doesn't mean 'gaining' as far as these dipshits are concerned. As the late, great Bill Nicholson once said, 'If he's not trying to gain an advantage, what's he doing on the pitch'. It was all part of the 'clarification', (AKA, totally changing), of the rules some years back.
Could someone please explain to me why if Italy won 1-0 and Spain and Croatia drew 0-0, Italy would have been in 1st place? B/c they scored a goal against Croats?
Not only was Navas obviously offside (and active... he was running into a scoring position in the box ffs) but I think the player who supplied to goal (Xavi or Iniesta?) was also barely offside. I think it was Corluka who had a free header from a corner around the 80th minute that ended up coming off his shoulder. He was clearly fouled by the Spanish player, who was dragging him away from the ball by the shirt. For the love of all things holy, please let someone knock Spain down a peg.
I think in that situation it would have been 3 teams tied on the same number of points, and you go to goals scored head to head (i.e. excluding the games against Ireland).
Yes, this was how it was explained to me as well and I think that is bullshit...all 3 matches should count toward the goal difference.
I'm generally not a fan of using head-to-head period. There have been numerous times during this tournament where the analysts didn't even really know who would advance in certain scenarios.
First, on the offside issue: When the first moves were made to allow players who were clearly nowhere near the play to be ignored, eg. a corner-taker hasn't made his way back onside yet, but a through-ball is slipped into the penalty area from outside the box, I thought that was a positive move. The general concept of having to be involved in the play in order to be offside is a strong one. The problem comes from the definitions applied to the words 'active', 'advantage', and 'phase'; the current situation is ludicrous. Moreover, I believe the main IFAB law - before the add-ons that have been created in recent years - still states that a player is offside if he gains, or seeks to gain, an advantage by being in an offside position when the ball is played forwards by a teammate. That is a very simple law to understand and officials should be allowed to exert their own judgement. UEFA/FIFA have exerted pressure on IFAB to remove individual judgement calls by officials and are making a mockery of the laws of their own sport. If you are 1. near the play, and 2. your opposition know you are there, then you create doubt and confusion in them and therefore gain an advantage. In the example of Allardyce's teams that used to line-up miles offside for free-kicks - they aren't doing that to stretch their legs. They're clearly seeking to gain an advantage. In summary, thank you all for explaining to me why the current climate in international football means that Navas was onside, though I was aware of that, and I'm glad to see I'm not alone in seeing that the governing bodies' interpretations of the offside law run completely contrary to the words used in that law.
Secondly, on the group tie-breaking. All teams play the same number of games within the same group of teams. I have NEVER liked head-to-head tie-breaking, because then why bother playing it as a group? Why create a mini-league of three teams that requires head-scratching when you can just apply group GD/GS first, which is clear and easy to see right away? It's not Spain's fault that Italy only scored two past Ireland or Italy's fault that Croatia conceded one against them. Crazy UEFA bastards.
Exactly correct. But if Spain and Croatia had drawn 1-1 rather than 0-0, then Spain would have topped the group due to having a great goal difference in all group games.