Yeah except that some of those fouls were sold by Argies and bought by the refs. key example, Heinze! when a team fouls a lot is not because they are losing control, its because they are being aggressive. when a team loses control they start getting red carded and possession changes drastically.
That call is so horrific and forget about allegiances, one sees in the first game, the poorest of calls that no one is going to see happen in any domestic league but you accept it at first, "okay, it's a mistake, we all can understand that and Germany is the better team" but then, just two hours later in the 'supposed' top level of soccer/football, there is an equally disgraceful immense mistake. Now we are talking about two, TWO huge refereeing, not even amatuer mistakes deciding these big games held every two years and in fact, on a Sunday when the viewing audience is surely at its largest. Are we going to now be a broken record and ignorantly just say, "Well, mistakes happen, I think Argentina was the blah blah blah". Well, why even play the games then. I think it's mainly officiating incompetence, but it is gross incompetence, gross negligence. When I watched it, I almost wondered if the Mexican team might even walk off the pitch and that would have almost been warranted BUT of course, Fifa would act in a way of probably suspending them for a tournament or two. Maybe best to pass on that, though really, if any team shows up to a tournament four years later for the same Sham types of calls, it might be better to walk! You know, a picture is worth a thousand words, http://i.oem.com.mx/9777547e-05ae-42e1-82ef-a6422e336c7f.jpg is the icon for me of this tournament, I didn't turn on to watch Chile Brazil, I was a bit interested in Netherlands because over all, they represent a sporting team on the international level imho but the World Cup is over for me, not because my favourite teams went out but because of this farcical officiating. How do you think Diego Maradona would have accepted such a verdict himself when he played the game? I guarantee you, not kindly at all. I walked out of watching the game with the 2nd goal, okay, Mexico became a bit nervy and I blame that for the 2nd goal but there is no way, such incompetent officiating should even enter into a game of this supposed importance, no way ever. I finally turn it back on around the 90th minute, I'm telling you, their ratings are plummeting, that was just highway robbery and they know it. The announcers on ESPN, not sure who, are just going through the motions, it wasn't what it was before this day of horrific calls, there was no conviction in their voices, there was no excitement, it was "Tevez this and Messi this" but the cup has lost it for a lot of people and it won't regain it either, it is exposed for a farce and has had certainly its share of many negative episodes in the past. I'm ranting on but say compare it to the Olympics, far from perfect but there is a word, "Olympic Ideal", the Olympics at least through its long history tries to be fair, it tries to be sporting. I'm not that concerned about the England game though they did come back from a 2-0 deficit, it is not for certain but with this Mexico game, they did indeed just hand Argentina a win. Yes, a team should battle back from adversity but I think that even has its limits when speaking of this kind of negligence. Basically a similar situation against the USA with the poor calls against them taking goals away so they are soiling there underwear and scoring in the 91st minute of the 3rd game to get a chance of advancing. Do you think that emotional rollercoaster effected their chances with Ghana? Hey, we should be able to rise above adversity, be unflappable, there should not be excuses made but there certainly has to be a threshold over what is fair. Fifa gave Mexico imho again, the worst of breaks, what I'd say is it is equal to the Ireland/France fiasco where a team, Ireland are good little boys, go through the qualifying schedule, obtain 2nd place, get into a playoff with France btw and a hand ball assisted goal again, cut and dry on any video decides who advances to the world cup and Fifa showed, they really didn't give a hoot about Ireland or the people there in the end. And yes, you could say a big nation was favored. Undeniably, it was favored to begin with when Fifa moved the goalposts and said of the teams competing in the playoffs, some would be seeded like Portugal, Russia and France, the big teams versus the other participants, Bosnia, Ireland, etc. and of course, here, Slovenia upset seed Russia to go to the World Cup. With contract disputes, doping offenses with athletes and other matters, there is the Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS), you know, someone really needs to take Fifa to task, not sure what can be done but something. Besides that, the idea is now catching on a bit though embryonic of a breakaway federation, a competitor to Fifa who really should be a competent guardian of football/soccer to the world, soccer doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the world, it belongs to the people! Budweiser is a big sponsor of the world cup, someone's got to give them a tag to say, don't give these jokers any advertising money, etc. etc. down the line with other companies. Additionally, I have found this to be a good article and discussion on the topic: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/fif...p-credibility-on-the-line.html#socialcomments I'm already half boycotting this joke going on here and if you read the above which is only from a Canadian news website, you'll see many people feel the same way.
I don't think much more can be said that hasn't been said already. Honestly......if the tables were turned and it was 3-1 in Mexico's favor with the EXACT same circumstances none of us here would want to lynch the ref/line ref. Argentina did what they had to do to win the game and we didn't. We can come up with all the excuses in the world and it won't matter......let's face the facts we won't be able to get to that very desired 5th game and beyond when our "stars" ride the bench in Europe. We won't go far when a group of pendejos feel a player who hasn't played in over a year would have made a difference. what happened here isn't any different than what happened in 94, 98, 02 and 06.
The problem for me is that this was supposed to be the World Cup where Mexico was supposed to improve based on the new generation of players abroad. Supposedly the best we team we have ever have, or the most potential anyway. Add to that a coach that know the surroundings of the Mexican bullshit that surrounds the NT, knows how to motivate, knows how thing really work in Mexico. But instead of improving, it was a step back. Granted, we did not see much improvement during qualifiers really, but I was hoping the players and coaches would bring up their "A" game at the world stage. Instead, we have the same old tired shit. Worst part, the FMF want's to keep the status quo. I guess it doesn't matter, until we keep buying what they sell us, nothing will change.
Only positives i take from this world cup is Gio, barrera, guardado, cheech, and juarez... might get their push to be starters on euro club teams. What i dont understand is what happened to all the preparation that took place, didn't we have like 17 friendlies to prepare us for this tournament, but yet we always had something 'new' in every game. Three captains, bofo, cuah, conjeo, franco who hasnt scored a goal in any world cup, out on the field? Its on paper why this team didnt get to the fifth game... Drawing to S.A was were it all started imho, how can you draw against a team that you should easily beat, yes its the first game of the world cup, but you have the much better talented team. The France game was a fluke, because France was shit. Then comes a very important match against Uruguay, you win you face south Korea not Argentina! What do they do they shit the bed. You can blame the ref for a shit call, but you cant blame the ref for the miss opportunities this this team had. Hopefully our young players find teams were they can see a lot of minutes. And we finally allow a coach to do his work.
I agree that this all went a bit downhill when we tied to South Africa and then lost to Uruguay. A lot of you guys are saying how we have to beat the best teams to get to the top but honestly, when you think of say, France winning France 98, do you guys remember what teams they beat to get to finals? No. Sure, at the moment it might... If we had beat Uruguay and played South Africa then Ghana and gotten to Semis, they might say "Oh, well, they got the easy path." But it doesn't matter. What matters is where we got. People aren't even saying that about Uruguay now. But even through all this, I think Mexico deserved to at least have a shot at playing a fair game with Argentina. Argentina isn't all that great and granted, 1st half would have been sucky because of Bofo being on the field, 2nd half would have been lit up with great subs, like Barrera. This game would have been completely different and would have helped the team look better. Instead, it made the team look weak and messy (until it got it's composure back later on). Now we'll have to wait another 4 years to get a real test to see how much we have grown.
Don't worry guys, Brasil, Spain, Argentina are getting all the calls. Spain dove twice and got rewarded with two red cards for the other teams. Also scored an offside goal vs Portugal. You guys got screwed, England, U.S.A, Portugal, Chili... The list goes on and on. Fifa is terrible and it will never change. I don't know why we keep watching this fraud. It's not a competition, it's all bs and really pointless in the end. I hope the last goal is scored by a offline so we can all laugh again at Fifa.
I don't know about Spain. When I looked replays, you can tell he elbows him but the close up replay starts after it has taken place. I don't remember about the Chile call. Although I felt bad for Cristiano Ronaldo during that game because he was getting fouled a lot but the ref wasn't buying it. :/ I do agree about the others, though. Except Kaka did get a second yellow that was BS.
Sports illustrated World Cup power rankings I lold after reading them http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20.../writers/grant_wahl/06/30/wcup.power.ranking/