Originally posted by boombox
.. or at least its soccer referees. :mad:
...now England too have gone out of Euro 2004 (soccer, for the unitiated) due to blatant fixing of the game by the referee in favour of the host nation.
Whoa whoa, we\'re a long, long way from anything that could be called a "fix" here.
1. First of all, Team Portugal carried the play the whole game. They played with a sense of urgency and desire that England didn\'t have until they went down 2-1 in extra time. Team England was content to sit on a 1-0 lead for the whole game, and totally had the game taken to them. The refs did not outshoot team England 34-13. The refs did not have a 59% time of posession. When you take 260% more shots than your opponent, and control the ball 60% of the game, you kicked that team\'s ass.
2. The foul call by the goal on England\'s score was the wrong call, but it was also a very difficult call. Anytime you make contact with the goalie and the goalie goes down, you\'re usually going to get called. Everyone knows that.
3. If you want to know the real reason why Team England lost, forget about the officials and look at your David Beckham poster. No ref made Team England\'s captain kick a penalty shot 50 feet over the net. No ref allowed his own team to think they had a game won in the first three minutes.
Team England was thoroughly whooped for 110 out of 120 minutes in the game. They were very lucky to make it to penalty kicks at all, and then lost that. They lost it in part due to their esteemed captain taking the worst penalty shot in the history of Euro competition. The refs have no control over penalty shots. So one debatable call didn\'t go Team Engalnd\'s way...if they had actually showed up for the game and played like they should have, they would have won 5-0. Give Team Portugal their props for playing a great game, and forgive your captain for letting your team down.
