“We had talks with FIFA officials about any sort of handling on your shirt, where they said it would be dealt with strictly,” he said. - Tim Cahill after the Chile game. I thought this was relevant. If FIFA have warned players about grabbing and given referees a directive to strictly punish it then I'm less inclined to have sympathy for Croatia. It also goes someway to explaining the decision. I don't think it was a penalty but in this context the decision isn't as egregious as it's being made out to be. Curious what others think.
I think that this is exactly true. According to Fred, the Ref said to players before the game that he wouldn't tolerate grabbing and pushing and shoving in the box. From the angle he was seeing the play it must have looked a lot better, given Fred's acting. The ref made a mistake. There is no fix or conspiracy.
Funny he says that yet he never got a penalty for get his jersey tugged a lot more than Fred who just got touched on the shoulder. You guys need to just realize it was a bullshit call be happy you won.
lol like it's destiny isn't it? france had to win it all and croatia had to lose in semi-final, it was already a great achievement...
He dove no question about that but I believe Lovren was extremely naive, he did hold (yes hold, his hand were around his shoulder you can see it clearly in the video bellow 0:06 to 0:07) Fred's shoulder. Now it can be easy seem in the replays that there weren't enough pressure to bring Fred down in that fashion but think about the ref point of view. He did see Lovren holding (albeit for a bit less than 2 secs) then he sees Fred goes down like a castle of cards there is no way for the judge to know how much pressure was applied. He blew his whistle.