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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 a new article from World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 about “Preview: Argentina vs. South Korea” .

THE BIG PICTURE
Argentina won their opening game, beating Nigeria 1-0 and with Leo Messi looking like his dangerous self once more. If you’re a South Korean defender, that has to be scary. Hopefully coach Diego Maradona will stick with his “as many attackers as possible on the field” strategy to play South Korea. Because there’s serious entertainment potential there. Big news for Argentina is that veteran midfielder Seba Veron is out with a calf injury. More at Argentina World Cup Blog.

South Korea also looked good while winning their first game, 2-0 against Greece, so they’re top of Group B on goal difference right now. Big name Park Ji-Sung scored the second in that game with a direct run and finish, but South Korea played some proper team football. Will be interesting to see if that ethic is good enough to take on the talents of the albiceleste. More at South Korea World Cup Blog.

WHAT’S AT STAKE
A win for either in this game would mean a total of six points and all but guarantee qualification. Would also put them in pole position to take first place. A draw might be OK for both teams, especially if the two pointless teams draw in the other game. Last but not least: Leo Messi. He was excellent against Nigeria, but didn’t score. The whole world (outside South Korea, plus possibly Brazil and the white half of Madrid) wants to see this kid score in South Africa.

Bet on Argentina vs. South Korea

OUR PREDICTION
I’m thinking goals. And our first back and forth game. And a final score of 2-2.

FAN RESOURCES

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Argentina Blog | Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter Argentina Jerseys | Argentina Tickets

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South Kore Blog | Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter South Korea Jerseys | South Korea Tickets

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Preview: Argentina vs. South Korea

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Continued here:
Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Sunderland