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Here’s a good article from FIFA World Cup – Google Blog Search

Spain now have a star on their shirt. I’m not exaggerating when I say that my limbs were numb and my mouth was …

Original post:
Remembering the 2010 Fifa World Cup

Here’s a new article from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “Andres Iniesta’s Tribute to Dani Jarque” .

Nice touch from Spain’s goalscorer Andres Iniesta today, who celebrated his 116th minute World Cup winning strike by whipping off his jersey to reveal a handwritten message on his vest type thingy. The message read: “Dani Jarque siempre con nostros” (Dani Jarque always with us) in reference to the Esanyol player who passed away at the age of 26 after a heart attack in the summer of 2009.

Iniesta was inevitably booked for removing his shirt, which I’m sure he won’t worry about too much about having won the World Cup and paid homage to a deceased friend/colleague (plus what’s one yellow card buried amongst the thousand others in this final). But this incident makes me think that maybe shirt removal bookings should be dependenet on quality of underlying t-shirt message, as in: tribute to deceased player after scoring in the World Cup final = you get a pass.

See original here:
Andres Iniesta’s Tribute to Dani Jarque

Here’s an interesting post from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “Getting shirty – Was Italy’s penalty deserved?” .

Italy’s World Cup is on the rocks after their unconvincing 1-1 draw with New Zealand. But should Vincenzo Iaquinta even had the chance to grab the Azzurri’s goal following disputes over referee Carlos Batres award of the spotkick?

Five months ago to the day, All White’s defender Tommy Smith had just suffered defeat by Brentford in the third tier of English football, on loan to the London club after being deemed temporarily surplus to requirements at Championship team Ipswich Town.

But despite his unfathomable journey from football league mediocrity to a starter against world champions Italy at the World Cup, Smith will have a bad taste in his mouth this evening despite his side’s heroic battle with Marcello Lippi’s side.

With his side a goal up through Shane Smeltz, which we’ll discuss later, Italy floated in a slightly wayward cross. Smith tussled with midfield dynamo Daniele De Rossi. He tugged on his jersey and the Roma player dropped to the ground. Guatemalan official Batres pointed to the spot almost immediately to constination from New Zealand and booked Smith.

Iaquinta cooly dispatched the kick past a wrongly-diving Mark Paston to equalise and ultimately leave the game level at full-time.

So was the decision correct? The picture below shows the pull on the jersey from Smith and while it isn’t tremendously restricting De Rossi’s movement, there’s no doubt that Smith has a firm hold. The video slip shows highlights from the full game but half-way through includes the penalty incident and close-up replays.

What Smith did is of course technically against the rules (Law 12: A penalty kick will be awarded to the opposing team if a player holds an opponent, for pedants among you) but this is something we have seen throughout the tournament.

During the infamous Maurice Edu incident, a conglemarate of USA players were being held and in last night’s contest between Denmark and Cameroon, Sebastien Bassong was clearly being held by Nicolas Bendtner as Dennis Rommedahl broke into the area to score.

Furthermore, De Rossi’s overreaction, while unsurprising, must surely have influenced Batres decision and I would be shocked if you replayed the ninety minutes and didn’t find another example of a shirt-tug in the box for either side that Batres either didn’t see or ignored.

Consistency is a vital foundation that officials at this years’ finals must try and rally round. We simply can’t have jersey pulls going unnoticed for two weeks and then suddenly a penalty and booking offence. While I concur that Batres can point to the rulebook, it was a harsh call. Although I don’t go quite as far as some Kiwi tabloids…

Batres’s position on the pitch is unclear but he is at least 20 or 30 yards from the incident and is on the wrong side to see the shirt pull. This adds further fuel to the idea that he may have based his call more on De Rossi’s flailing fall than the actual hold itself.

Italian fans will no doubt argue that their side shouldn’t have been in a losing position at that time after New Zealand’s opener had a questionable fragrance of offside to it.

First let’s deal with the ball to Smeltz following Simon Elliott’s looping freekick. To my mind, it clearly comes off Winston Reid and I don’t see how there can be little contention with that. When it comes off Reid, as the photo below shows, Smeltz is active and in and offside position.

We also need to address the deflection of Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro. Under the offside law (Law 11) if a player sends the ball towards the goal (Reid) but it is deflected by an opponent (Cannavaro) to his opponent (Smeltz) who was in an offside position at the time the initial ball was played then the goal will not be allowed. The deflection off Cannavaro does not affect the basic principles of offside.

You can read more about the Smeltz incident on World Cup Blog here where it is explored in more detail.

Overall, I think a draw was fair result as neither goal was particularly deserved in the spirit of the rules and both teams failed to put any of their further chances away. But I’d be very interested to hear others comments on this as a lot of this is down to interpretation. Was Batres too harsh on Smith or perfectly justified?

Andy is writer of the referee’s blog at World Cup Blog and has written about the subject extensively for range of websites.

See more here:
Getting shirty – Was Italy’s penalty deserved?

Here’s an interesting article from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “Match Review & Highlights: Spain 0-1 Switzerland” .

Big surprise. Great game. That’s my two sentence summary. But I’ll expand on it a little below.

Spain are (or should that be were?) many people’s favourites to win the whole thing. They’re the reigning European Champions after all. They were also expected to beat Switzerland without too much trouble. Yet somehow this finished Switzerland 1-0 Spain, with Gelson Fernandes scoring the all important goal early in the second half.

In fairness to Spain, they dominated this game: 63% possession, 24 shots, and eight on target, compared to Switzerland’s 37% possession, 8 shots, and three on target. So Spain had three times as many attempts on goal as Switzerland.

Spain also did the usual tac-tac-tac passsing that has made them so successful – and popular – in recent years. The difference is that with Fernando Torres injured, Vicente Del Bosque has switched to a sort of attacking 4-2-3-1 formation, with David Silva, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta all playing behind David Villa. It’s worked in recent weeks, but not today. Too much passing, and not enough scoring. Any Arsenal supporting Spain fans might have felt a little bit of déjà vu while watching this. Or whatever the Spanish for déjà vu is.

As if to prove that goals don’t have to be pretty, Switzerland scored one of the scrappist I’ve seen in a while in the 52nd minute:

A through ball bounced off Eren Derdiyok’s knee and set up a 50/50 with the onrushing Ikder Casillas. San Iker got their first but his save rebounded back into the six yard box and bounced in front of fallen Gerard Pique (who had taken a boot in the face as Erin Derdiyok fell while challenging) before Gelson Fernandes steamed in to poke home.

Del Bosque responded by introducing a striker with the name Torres on his shirt, but the man who miscontrolled several through balls bore no resemblance to El Nino. Seems he either wasn’t fit enough to return, or was asked to return in too difficult a situation.

Spain’s came closest to equalizing in the 71st minute, when Xabi Alonso did this to the crossbar…

… which at least confirmed these goal frames are well constructed.

Switzerland very nearly made it 2-0 a few minutes later, with Derdiyok hitting the post and causing a goalmouth scramble:

But despite easily the most exciting 90 minutes World Cup 2010 has given us so far, the score remained 1-0 Switzerland.

It’s worth noting that though Switzerland did a lot of defending, they weren’t especially negative. Ottmar Hitzfeld went with a old fashioned ish 4-4-2 (though I’m sure the players instructions were a little more complex than that) and the midfield and defence ran their asses off chasing Spanish passes. They even lost defensive mainstay Phlippe Senderos after 36 minutes, but Steve Von Bergen came on to deputize effectively.

No need for Spain to panic just yet, but I’m hoping to see Vicente Del Bosque go back to 4-4-2 and maybe partner David Villa with someone fitter than Fernando Torres and put La Furia Roja back on track for the Second Round.

Man of the Match: Swiss goalkeeper Diego Benaglio. Why? Spain nil. That’s why.

Link:
Match Review & Highlights: Spain 0-1 Switzerland

Here’s a new article from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “Match Review & Highlights: Uruguay 0 – France 0.” .

Please don’t take “highlights” at face value – there were very few, if any, to be honest. It was a very boring, very frustrating ninety minutes of football blueprinted by Oscar Tabarez and his stifling crew of Uruguayan defenders and defensive-minded midfielders. France spent the game dominating the ball going forward, but looking for space which simply wasn't there. Simply a great defensive performance, something which seems to come along quite often during World Cup games – 'tis the tournament of conservative tactics, after all.

The game had a bit more back-and-forth in the opening minutes, even if it typically involved meters upon meters of air underneath with an offside Luis Suarez on one end and a Nicolas Anelka on the other with Uruguay kits riding him like a show pony. It looked to be France’s game when Franck Ribery cut a ball in from the left to Sidney Govou within the first ten minutes, but France’s #10 could only squib it wide and miss what would be France’s best chance all game long (though Yoann Gourcuff went close with a free kick soon after).

Despite their numbers in the back, Uruguay had two fairly good chances, both coming off the boot of Diego Forlan, who was already thinking about taking his shirt off, thus putting the cart before the horse. And goal. The first chance was a lovely little 1-2 and simple cut inside, the type of thing which great players do ever so simply, and peppered it off the Jabulani-fearing hands of Hugo Lloris. His second came on the other side of the half – not much to report in between – when he found himself all alone with a silver platter ball 15 yards and dead center from net. That one, unfortunately, didn’t even make the goal frame.

There were a number of other half chances, but it was well and truly a story of Uruguay’s defense and France’s inability to formulate any ideas which would create the space the South Americans were closing down so effectively.

Like any good World Cup match, however, it wasn’t without drama. Nicolas Lodeiro, one of the brightest youngsters in the game and a star in Uruguay’s qualifying campaign, came on in the 63rd and saw his second yellow in the 81st for going into a tackle on Bakary Sagna with the accuracy of buckshot. A red ensued and the tears flowed as he walked off the pitch, due a letter from FIFA with a suspension attached.

The last good chance was a handball that never even happened. The ball bounced up and hit Maurzio Victorino in the stomach yards from the goal mouth, and French players protested. First to raise his hand after shooting? A Mr. Thierry Henry – very much a stickler for the rules. (1min into the highlights.)

[101gg]

Man of the Match: Oscar Tabarez. The tactics worked, and it didn’t even matter that he announced his team days in advance. France and Raymond Domenech, a superior team, simply had no answers for ninety minutes.

The rest is here:
Match Review & Highlights: Uruguay 0 – France 0.