The tournament is in South Africa. The CONCACAF team in the group has lost its first two games. Barely mathematically alive, they need the group leaders to defeat a reigning champion (in a game with a Mexican referee), while they themselves need to defeat the team that stunned the reigning champion 1-0. There's goal differential to be made up too, as the reigning champion had defeated the CONCACAF team by a two-goal margin. I refer, of course, to the situation on 21 June 2009, when the USA took its 0 points and -5 goal differential into its last match in Group B of the Confederations Cup, against Egypt. Egypt had shocked reigning World Cup champions Italy 1-0; Italy's 3-1 win over the USA, coupled with Brazil's 3-0 defeat of the USA and Egypt's narrow 4-3 loss to Brazil, left the USA barely mathematically alive. But Benito Archundia had the whistle as Brazil defeated Italy 3-0, while the USA stunned Egypt 3-0 to advance on the goals-scored tiebreaker as the second-place team. The first paragraph also applies, as you perceive, to Group H of the 2010 World Cup, where Honduras takes its 0 points and -3 goal differential into its last group match, against Switzerland. Switzerland has shocked reigning European champions Spain 1-0; Spain's 2-0 win over Honduras, coupled with Chile's 1-0 defeat of Honduras and Switzerland's narrow 1-0 loss to Chile, has left Honduras barely mathematically alive. But Marco Rodríguez has the whistle for Chile-Spain... I don't seriously expect Honduras to advance; their situation seems somewhat bleaker than the USA's was. Needing to defeat Switzerland -- a team that's conceded only one goal in the last two World Cups -- by two goals; injury problems; counting on Chile to beat Spain rather than Brazil to beat Italy... but I still think it's too early to write Honduras off entirely.
I know you're talking about the Euro Cup, but the reigning champion is Italy. As for the topic, I wouldn't be surprised to see Chile beat Spain, and Honduras beating Switzerland. I just don't think it'll be by enough goals. Anyways, VAMOS Chile and Honduras!
I find this thread completely out of place, you can probably hate the guy, but what it is said about him, without being direct, but implying about him is totally disrespectful. Marco Rodriguez, the Mexican referee, who will be in charge of the match of Spain vs. Chile, is a very rigid referee, who doesn`t apply much criteria, but does his job honestly and tries to be objective in the application of the rules of the game. He will not take no "sh**" from nobody, not even if you are the most important player of the world or that he must make a call against anyone. In my very personal opinion about him, if ever my team had to play against Mexico, in Mexico, in the Aztec stadium, without any Chilean fan in it, his presence as the referee of that match would give me full certainty that he will not make any calls in order to favour his country at all, reason why he is among the best referee`s there is. With what I`m saying as if he makes a bad call against my team later, I will be completely pissed off, but I`m certain that he will be honestly applying the rules according to what he thinks had saw. The only critic I can make about him, is that he is very fond to showing cards, so he can seriously damage the conformation of a team for future games to come for that team, but if he thinks that someboby deserves a card, he will not hesitate. As a player with him around, you got to be very careful, but who ever follows the rules doesn`t have anything to fear. I sincerely hope he has a great game later, and as I know (wishing not to think otherwise later on,) he will give a guarantee to the fairness of that game. At least that`s my personal opinion. The beauty of any given game is that rules must be respected at all times. With no rules, there wouldn`t be a game. If Chile were in the need of the help from the referee, I sincerely hope he doesn`t. If we were to loose honestly, I prefer it a thousand times more than to win a game cheating.
Absolutely not my intention, sorry. The Mexican referee was just one more coincidence. I didn't mean to imply that Archundia was anything other than totally professional in Brazil-Italy, nor that Rodríguez would be anything other than totally professional in Chile-Spain.
Dr. Gamera, think about this way: If the ref shows favor to Chile and Honduras wins, what do you think that will say about Hondruas, Chile, and CONCACAF? I can't say there will be much positive said on all accounts. And, of course, his international career might be in question (though we did once have Pendergast ).
It's not even a very good coincidence, because once you have a CONMEBOL-UEFA matchup like Brazil-Italy or Chile-Spain, you've limited the possible options to the set of good referees from countries not in CONMEBOL or UEFA, and many of the referees in that set are Mexican.
Exactly. If there is one place where you think a ref regularly officiates high quality teams outside of CONMEBOL-UEFA, then it would be Mexico. I suppose they could restrict the pool even further and dictate that no referees from confederations in the group are permitted, so that means no UEFA referees at all in groups, CONMEBOL refs in only 3 groups, and a bunch of North American, Asian, African, and Oceania refs. No thanks.