On March 02 2011 06:48 Freaky[x] wrote: I don't understand how anybody can say the penalty is wrong... it went through the guys leg and Smalling tripped him... it was such an easy decision.
Also Chelsea played to win and Manchester just defended and counter attacked. they didn't seem dangerous except for a couple of times in the game. On the other hand chelsea kept pushing and pushing all game long and it paid off.
smalling's foot is firmly set on the ground, he doesn't move it towards the ball, zhirkov runs into his foot and is tripped by it. it's not a flat out wrong penalty, more like a 70/30 decision (where 70 is not giving a penalty). the show I watched had 3 very knowledgeable commentators analyzing the replay over and over and concluding that it prolly shouldn't have been one - granted one of them admitted to having a united bias. They also all stated that the referee can't really be faulted for giving a penalty, he was very well placed and it took them several views of the replay from different angles to decide that it prolly shouldn't have been one.
additionally, david luiz should have been sent off. (three situations where he should have gotten a yellow card.) It doesn't change anything, chelsea was the better team and complaining about the referee is generally just stupid, but today united was a little unlucky with some key decisions.
On March 02 2011 07:07 Freaky[x] wrote: I certainly don't want to hear anybody talk about people needed to be sent off because the goal scoring for manchester shouldn't even be playing... but the FA is protecting their asset .
He probably did what Shearer did back in the day and tell the FA to fuck off or he won't play for England anymore.
Wayne Rooney playing = Ashley Cole playing.
Besides that, replacing Rooney with Berbatov in the starting lineup isn't as big as Chelsea potentially being down a man when the game was tied 1-1. 11 on 10 changes the game completely.
However, I agree that United lost the game when they went super defensive after the goal. When they were attacking, the ball hardly left Chelsea's half. Should have pressed to get 2-0; you knew Chelsea would score if given the rest of the game to attack.
WHOA, What did Ashley Cole do to not be allowed to play? Does an internal affair caused by an accident suddenly mean a player can't play? Crazy. He didn't intentionally try to hurt someone on the pitch.
Personally I was glad to see both play. We can go back and look at every game this season and analyze the possible effects of each and every missed call. I wouldn't want the FA to ban Rooney retroactively any more than I'd want them to retroactively award Luiz a second yellow and toss him from the following match. Applied consistently, that kind of "what if" speculating is pointless.
On March 02 2011 06:48 Freaky[x] wrote: I don't understand how anybody can say the penalty is wrong... it went through the guys leg and Smalling tripped him... it was such an easy decision.
Also Chelsea played to win and Manchester just defended and counter attacked. they didn't seem dangerous except for a couple of times in the game. On the other hand chelsea kept pushing and pushing all game long and it paid off.
United dominated Chelsea in the first half and before the equalizer. What game were you watching
Chelsea 7 Shots on Target 2 United Chelsea 8 Shots off Target 4 United
Even when united were 'dominating' they weren't creating a lot of chances for themselves to put the game to bed. Maybe because Chelsea have the best defense in the league...
On March 02 2011 06:48 Freaky[x] wrote: I don't understand how anybody can say the penalty is wrong... it went through the guys leg and Smalling tripped him... it was such an easy decision.
Also Chelsea played to win and Manchester just defended and counter attacked. they didn't seem dangerous except for a couple of times in the game. On the other hand chelsea kept pushing and pushing all game long and it paid off.
smalling's foot is firmly set on the ground, he doesn't move it towards the ball, zhirkov runs into his foot and is tripped by it. it's not a flat out wrong penalty, more like a 70/30 decision (where 70 is not giving a penalty).
I agree, looking at the replay it seemed pretty obvious that Zhirkov saw Smallings leg extended and ran purposefully into it. Looked pretty calculated. But the ref can't be faulted, really.
Schalke just pawned Bayern. I hate van Gaal so every loss works for me. Just funny how the dominating forces of the last season now have to fight for playing in the CL next time.
dunno Schalke was defending pretty much all game. i remember Neur saying that with magath the team has no midfield, since he himself has to sent balls to Raul/ Huntelaar to score
On March 03 2011 12:07 ilj.psa wrote: dunno Schalke was defending pretty much all game. i remember Neur saying that with magath the team has no midfield, since he himself has to sent balls to Raul/ Huntelaar to score
It was a very divided game. The first half Schalke was dominating very hard. They defended a lot but when they attacked it was very dangerous and Bayern never had a chance to score the entire time. The second looked very different and Bayern almost made goals a number of times. I know they were lucky butI'm still happy for them ^^
FIFA will release the distribution between the confederations of the spots for 2014 WC today. Though I think they should take at the very least reduce Africa to 5 spots again for its poor showing (Ghana aside obviously) last year and 2006. Still I would feel sorry for the people there. But Asia imho deserves more spots than Africa. And maybe FIFA could even take a european spot, given last years overall performance. Then again, they probably wont, if only just because of the money.
On March 03 2011 12:07 ilj.psa wrote: dunno Schalke was defending pretty much all game. i remember Neur saying that with magath the team has no midfield, since he himself has to sent balls to Raul/ Huntelaar to score
It was a very divided game. The first half Schalke was dominating very hard. They defended a lot but when they attacked it was very dangerous and Bayern never had a chance to score the entire time. The second looked very different and Bayern almost made goals a number of times. I know they were lucky butI'm still happy for them ^^
Well the only chances were set pieces... I would hardly call that dominating.
On March 03 2011 21:50 Mafe wrote: FIFA will release the distribution between the confederations of the spots for 2014 WC today. Though I think they should take at the very least reduce Africa to 5 spots again for its poor showing (Ghana aside obviously) last year and 2006. Still I would feel sorry for the people there. But Asia imho deserves more spots than Africa. And maybe FIFA could even take a european spot, given last years overall performance. Then again, they probably wont, if only just because of the money.
I actually don't know if I would cange too much. The Asians always had only S Korea and Japan and with N Korea as the next in line I don't see them getting another spot. Africa is developing but maybe they have one spot too much. I would give that one to Europe though because France and Italy might have sucked that time but other than that they still have some teams that can compete and in the end 3 of the 4 remaining were Europeans. Many top europeans kicked each other out giving the impression that Europe does not have the densety any more but when It and Fr are back in shape and so many consecutive failed trainers for Brazil I'd argue Europe is going to be more dominant than usual. The problem is that you can't argue that any continent other than Europe still has competitive teams other than what they fielded already. I would have no big problems if it stayed like it was last year though. Give Africa and Asia a chance to get better. The Ivory coast could have also had good run if they weren't put in the group of death with Port and Brazil.
African football is "evolving"(read: stagnating compared to the evolution of other parts of the world) since 20 years now, and even in their own continent they didn't impress. I can't hear that phrase anymore :p . Nobody can deny the potential Africa has, but with the kind of government/social and financial structures many countries over there have it's just hard to progress. Just listen to what people like Dinzey(someone of African descent who played Bundesliga and tried/is trying to help football in Africa) say about football in Africa, it's nothing positive about the circumstances there.
Imo they will only fall further behind because Asia really is evolving, they have the potential and the infrastructures to make use of it. So I kinda agree with Mafe, Asia should get one of the African spots.
And about the "bad" performance of Europe: The top 3 were all European.
EPT
