Re: Ruud charged by FA Unfortunately, RvN is probably going to get payback +10 on the return leg. It's the nature of the beast. While it may have died down in a few months, the papers will certainly bring it all back up in the spring and somebody will feel it's their duty to run him into the ground. No, it's not right, but, yes, it's going to happen. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if soccer would institute a "penalty box" then this crap wouldn't happen. If RvN knew that payback would be imminent, he probably would have kept his studs down. Trust me, if fighting were ever outlawed in the NHL you would see more nasty fouls and chickens**t challenges than you could shake a stick at. The fact that they know they'll have to "pay for their sins" to some cementhead keeps their stick blades down. If Sol knows he'll do 5 minutes off the pitch, max, for any tackle that could be construed as legit then he'll find his opportunity and bury RvN, therefore RvN would have thought better of kicking Cole. Simple as that. Sadly, if Riley had used any common sense and started handing out cards to both sides early and often all of this could have probably been avoided.
If Ruud had denied it, it would be, "He can't accept that he is in the wrong." With him accepting it, its, "This proves what a dirty cheater he is." Oh well, we'll make do without him.
He may have fought a "disrepute charge" because that goes more towards intent. He denies publically that he didn't intend to harm Cole, but he accepts that there was contact, and therefore a foul. He could probably use the rest, and we need to get Saha and Smith some time with Rooney as well...
So now what's the deal with Egner denying calling RVN a cheat? Did the papers all just make that up? Seems like everyone had the same quote.
You know, why don't they just ban everyone? Holy crap, the English media can make a mountain out a molehill. I have now heard pizza, soup, and a sandwich as being the foodstuffs thrown. Wenger has been quoted and now denies ever having spoken a word on that day, and nobody seems to recall anything else. If this went on after an NFL game, ESPN would be making jokes about it, for God's sake. For the English press, everything is the end of the world as we know it. In the words of the late. great, Rodney Daingerfield: "Relax"
Re: Ruud charged by FA This has got to be the worst post I have read from you Coach. The penalty in football is being sent off. According to the rules if a Ref had seen that tackle Ruud would have been gone for the whole game. As it is, the penalty is relatively stiff as he will miss 3 games. The concept of the penalty box being a solution because there is a penalty for your actions makes no sense. Futhermore, the idea that Ruud would get punished from Sol for his tackle on Ashley dont you think Henry would get his due from Heinze in return? What happens then is just a downward spiral to caveman like behavior and the sport becoming wrestling with a ball. No thank you. I would much rather see the occasional stop in the foot than the occasional full fledged fight involving multiple players. Hockey, a sport where infrequently goalkeepers who are on opposite ends of the rink will fight each other is the worst example of discipline in professional sports - we need to learn from their errors rather than emulate them. Maybe there is a reason people respect BBC more than they do CNN or ESPN for that matter. I agree that sometimes you can make too much of something but at the same time there is a level of professionalism that should be observed.
Re: Ruud charged by FA Well it isn't surprising that Ruud will get the 3 match ban. I will admit that I thought after seeing it in replays that he should have gotten a card and that he got off easy. I also think that both organizations are trying to downplay all the extra cirricular activities and that is the reason no one is talking about the tunnel incidents. I am sure stuff happened but they are right to try and not make that a focus for the public. The media will try and do that because Arsenal v. Manchester United is one of the rare games with loads of talent, loads of passion (on both sides), and loads at stake.
Re: Ruud charged by FA You also very rarely see the kind of chickens**t foul of which Ruud has been accused. My point was not that there should be more violence; far from it. The point was that had RvN known there would be immediate physical consequences to his actions then he wouldn't have done it in the first place. And Cole would probably think twice about going in two-footed on somebody. Notice I never said that they needed to legalize fighting in soccer, just a system where it isn't an "either you're sent off or you're not" where players can get away with petty crap simply because they know that no one will generally attempt to rectify the situation as they will be sent off and hurt their team. Put yourself in RvN's shoes: are you going to stomp Cole if you know that, chances are, you'll get it back in spades later in the match? The cheap shots dissappear and the game actually becomes less violent. Point 2: it's not the BBC I was directing these comments towards but the various other tabloids and whatnot. ESPN realizes that it's sports, not the real world, and it should be treated lightly. Sometimes I feel certain publications in England just don't get that. Odd, isn't it, that American sports are criticized for being violent and fan violence is a phenomena that doesn't exist in the stands of US sporting events? Come on, johno, you usually don't have such thin skin.
Re: Ruud charged by FA Not necessarily, johno. Referee decisions are notoriously arbitrary, and quite frankly, Riley has admitted not wanting to send off anybody in the game, so it's highly unlikely RvN would have received a red card. Having seen the incident myself, I'd say I myself probably wouldn't have given a red card. Especially not if I had the conservative game strategy Riley went in with. I'd have given him a yellow, and that would be that, because if I bothered to punish the offense at all, the FA wouldn't be reviewing it. It is most certainly not worth a 3 match ban. I've seen way worse tackles than that given yellow cards only. If there was a red card offense in the match, it was Neville's tackle from behind on Reyes, not because it involved studs, but because it was, in the words of the LOTG, "a tackle from behind with little regard for the safety of the opponent" which "must be sanctioned as serious foul play." But no ref in the FA would have given him one for it. The "penalty box" exists in Rugby, and is a yellow card. It also exists in high school and other youth association soccer leagues. You get a yellow, and your arse is planted on the bench instantly, until the next legal substitution opportunity. So Coach's idea is not at all absurd, and has been proven effective enough in another major sport, as well as the sport of soccer itself below the professional level. As it is, the FA is stuck trying to level some justice after the fact, and I think we all know that the FA are a bunch of #@%!ing wankers. This is not good policy, either.
Re: Ruud charged by FA Er, maybe not among the fans themselves, but there have been incidences of fan violence. Maybe not nearly as many. The bottle-throwing incident in the Cleveland NFL game a few seasons back is the same as the battery-chucking incident in Milan during this season's CL. That was a pretty ugly scene in Cleveland. Let's be careful not to make this into another cross-atlantic pissing contest.
Re: Ruud charged by FA While I agree that there are isolated incidents, the large scale problem hasn't really been seen in the US as it has been in Europe and South America, although it probably has more to do with the fact that, due to the distances involved, fans of professional teams generally don't travel in the US.
Re: Ruud charged by FA WTF happened to my avatar? (EDIT: damn! I thought maybe Shrek had left the building and I'd be able to get off with a "Hey, I tried")
Re: Ruud charged by FA Don't forget that wonderful Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles game in the snow(between 90&94 sometime) Loads of snowballs were thrown and don't think there weren't batteries in them.