I say Totti deserved the red because 1) His reputation of diving. 2) The antics he threw begging for the penalty. I really did feel sorry for the Spanish though. That was indeed a strange match. It was a refereeing disaster in which one team did emerge the winner. Spain got away with some amazingly blatant fouls, yet seemed like they weren't allowed to score a goal. Also the Spanish never got booked for playing on after the whistle. It was Morientes who hit the post. Heck if anyone wants a conspiracy theory try this one: The Italians, knowing most of the world was making fun of them, decided to get the ref for Korea vs Spain to stuff it up and let the Spanish tackle as hard as they liked, but never score and have Korea win it controversially. HAH.
Another reason Totti deserved the Red: Arrogance Q: How many goals do you need to score to defeat Korea Totti: One Q: How many can you score? T: As many as we want. Well, ok, arrogance is not listed in the FIFA regs...... As for the keeper moving early, Casillas did exact same thing when he saved from Ian Harte just the game before ours. I didn't see too many Spain players pleading w/ the ref to let Harte re-take it b/c the keeper moved way too early.
Totti fully deserved that red, if not for that particular incident but from his antics throughout the game... I saw a footage where he and Kim Tae-Young (I think) came to a brief contact, and while it showed clearly that Totti was hit on the abodomen/chest he suddenly grabbed his head as if Kim banged his head... Totti might be a great player but he has no scruples at all when it comes to performing all the fake actions if it could benefit his team - his intention might be admirable (being an athlete, to win at all costs) but his means are certainly deplorable.
I think it was Hong Myung Bo. He and Hong were fighting for the ball and Totti elbowed Hong in the face and after Hong won the ball away from him, he grabbed his eye as if he'd been hit in the face. Someone here posted a picture from a Japanese newspaper which made a joke about that particular incident. They showed Totti grabbing his face and the caption underneath it read something like 'koreans shoot totti in the eye with a laser beam'.
Seems to be a raging debate between Kim Tae-young, Song Jung-guk and Hong Myung-bo. lol I think it was Kim Tae-young. It wasn't the right side of the pitch for it to be Song Jung-guk.
I'm currently in the middle of watching it myself, and as far as I understood it, those segments of the film were to do with controversial "CALLS" made by the ref. Can't see what it had to do with "Koreans". Unless the ref was one himself, and even then, it's all about the call. Not the nationality. If I did'nt know better, I'd say you were feeding for shouts of prejudice.
Well, the problem is that unlike you, many others in the past linked the 'referees' with 'Koreans bribing the ref', discrediting the effort of the players and the entire nation - even on BS there were lots of crap flying around, so after having experienced all that ppl tend to get sensitive about things.