Kolabear isn't, but has the sense to ask the folks who are. I'm a newbie ref, and I was doing that myself a lot and finally got inspired by the people on that forum to get my badge. If Kolabear isn't careful s/he'll end up in a yellow shirt amongst a horde of excited U-littles some Sunday afternoon!
Kola often posts many interesting links from the ref's forum, hence my question to him. We might as well make him an honorary ref. When I saw your post earlier, I thought: wow, we have a number of referees that post in the women's forum. You, @exref and a few others. Perhaps, we need a ref's sub forum to examine the questionable calls from the WWC.
I do believe there is a ref thread around here somewhere. Not exactly what you are talking about, but can easily turn that way.
This is why no one should take men's soccer seriously. Also, your post is why men shouldn't be taken seriously.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/33365095 England World Cup heartbreak: Have they upset football gods? SCENE 1 - INTERIOR, MESSY LIVING ROOM A man and a woman wearing England shirts are sitting on a sofa, head in hands. They are surrounded by empty beer bottles and they have been crying. A TV is showing Laura Bassett's injury-time own goal against Japan on loop. Suddenly, the man drops to his knees and raises his hands to the heavens. MAN: Oh, footballing gods, what have we done to offend you so?! You gift Maradona his handball in 1986, magic the ball into a balloon beforeChris Waddle's penalty in 1990, turn Gazza into a statue against Germany in 1996 - and always make Bryan Robson sick! And now our women, too! You are clearly a vengeful god who hates the English! But why?! Explain yourself! MAN: What is the truth? GOD OF FOOTBALL: The truth is that you just aren't very good at football. And you are arrogant. When you lose, it suits you to believe that always you have been somehow cheated - that we gods have conspired against you - but you happily forget about all that luck that we have gifted you through the years. WOMAN: But our girls did great at the World Cup! GOD OF FOOTBALL: Yes. They did OK. But why were they such underdogs to begin with? Why was it seen as such a glorious victory to reach the last four? Because your women have not - as yet - learned the lessons of your men… The God of Football kneels before the man and woman and embraces them. GOD OF FOOTBALL: You know who the lucky teams are? The teams the gods do not conspire against? The teams the gods do not make cry? The best teams. The teams that beat other good teams prosaically. The teams which are created through superior teaching and do not rely on mysticism to win or lose. Put it this way - I don't spend much time in German living rooms… … teach your young girls well and they, when they become women, will be spared the devastation of your men - and all of their long-suffering fans. For your women, it is early days, so they bear fewer scars than your men. And, women's football being still young, they are in a position to steal a march on most of their opposition.
At the time I thought this was NOT the thing to say --- . But looking back a day later, that was the right thing to say TO all of the fans back in England at 2 in the morning at that time. What is clear is that the ending was such a shock to him (and to everyone) that he completely forgot that England still has another game to get the Bronze medal. This will be a real test for him and his staff to get his players focused for a game on Saturday that still has quite a bit of meaning. How well England can shake off this result and play another 90 minutes is another potential step forward for England -- those players that can take another step forward need to stay with the team. Those that can't get ready...they need to work on their mental toughness.
I'm not agreeing with those saying "the better team lost". Weird 1st half with 2 PKs called and converted within 10 minutes. In the 2nd half, England had the better chances (two crossbar denials) along with some corners -- but much of that came from creating turnovers in the center of the park. At the same time, England wasted a lot of momentum with these long balls mostly to nowhere -- Can't play that way on artificial turf. England would have been better served with just keeping possession and moving it down the park because Japan was making more mistakes than usual in the midfield and back line. But then I don't know if England is a "play out of the back possession" team or prefers Route 1. Japan was showing some fatigue... but the failure of either team showed that the game was up for grabs and NEITHER wrested control. The three minutes of injury time had been posted, and England had a free kick that got cleared and taken upfield. The Kick to the box was dangerous... but you never can expect to happen what did happen. I was thinking they just had to clear it, make one more CK defense, and then we would be off to Extra time. And then Bassett tries to clear out... and then I'm saying -- Holy shikeis... that is IN! Own goals happen... but usually in the 1st half -- there is always time to recover from them. Not in this case. Shocked. Was so expecting to see extra time... and Japan try to regain some sense of composure. My GF said, "It's hard enough to score a goal when you are TRYING to score... and then this happens"
England might have more possession, but their long balls were going nowhere, where as Japan made some incredibly accurate long range passes, both goal came from that/ Sampson screwed up a bit here; it's the it's the 1st pairing of Duggan & Taylor playing side by side at this WC? Why start now?(as they didn't show any chemistry together) and why bringing in the slow poke, Ellen Whte, to chase after all those long balls?(when he had a couple of speedsters on the bench in Sanderson & Aluko)
Surely you're joking, aren't you ? I mean we all forced her to play int'l soccer. Then also forced her to take money to play as a pro. The second she chose to play on an int'l level. She gave up her right to privacy ... As it pertains to her as a player during games ( Not her private life ). Sucks to be her... but, don't cry about having your privacy invaded. In fact I have a solution that will ever fix the " privacy " thing... Don't ever step foot outside of your house. Bam... problem solved. She would not be in the public eye if she didn't want to be. And had she scored the game winner for her "OWN" team. I'm pretty sure she'd bask in the glory of the world press. Kind of a catch 22. Don't suck up to the press in good times. And dont put your stinking hands on a camera of an official broadcaster, in the bad times. How unbelievably arrogant. There is by the way a law against that. It's called assault. You pays your money... you takes your chances. The only thing I find to be ridiculous is your post !!!! Imsayin. ps... did I get the number of exclamation points right ? You must be really serious.
I would say England played a lot of long balls b/c nobody has been able to beat Japan's defense once it gets set.
Even though the media has portrayed that Laura Bassett has received nothing but love and sympathy since her unfortunate error, this is not entirely true. Unfortunately, she has been slammed by quite a few people on her twitter account, even though the bulk of them are still showing her support. Ready to go now @FIFAWWC Semi Final! Feeling recovered, prepped and fully fueled!! Thankyou so much @USN_UK @KarlosBickley 👌— Laura Bassett (@laurabassett6) July 1, 2015 #FreePalestine @BeardsOnPoint Jul 1 @laurabassett6 @FIFAWWC @USN_UK @KarlosBickley think your fuel ran out! Get back into the kitchen!!
That's hard to watch, even though it's only 4 minutes. Props to her for getting out there at talking about that moment.
I've not been able to post recently due to this script not letting me post from an android phone so now I'm using my laptop. For the life of me I CANNOT understand WHY Coach Sampson didn't start Carney against Japan in the World Cup semi final?? She is clearly a spark plus and one of their best players. She was making good moves and getting by some Japanese players. It makes NO sense to keep her on the bench till the last 10 minutes of the game! She should've started or at least come on at the start of the 2nd half. Anyone know why he kept Carney off till the last 10 minutes??
@REALfootballRulez If you're having script errors, why on earth are you creating new threads for posts that belong elsewhere? Is it really that important that you say something NOW!? At the end of the day, it forces us mods to do a bit more work to keep the place as clean/organized as possible. As Dark Knight once kept as his sig "Think before you post."