Yeah, that was pretty fucking awful.
One of the ESPN commentators, Efan Ekoku, said it was a “stray elbow,” but after seeing replays from three different angles, i saw no contact at all. That sort of diving should result in disqualification from the rest of the tournament.
That annoys me too. Quite often now you see the team in the lead wait until 90 minutes and immediately make a substitution. knowing that the bookkeeping required to add 30 seconds on to the already-added time is often too much for referees. Understandably so I think, I’m not really criticising the refs, but it is a manoeuvre that they can and do exploit.
Anyway, in that game I thought at the the time that the goal was slightly offside, but we didn’t get a good replay of it. Post-match punditry indicates that it was offside.
[ETA] It’s just occurred to me - there are now no World Cup games for THREE DAYS! What on earth are we going to do?
Sepp Blatter probably sees it as an essential part of the game.
I thought it might be offside, as well. I have not seen the replay to confirm, but I thin it was a vvery difficult call.
They showed the replay quite well here, he was on the line, not offsides.
I’m looking at the freeze-frame right now, with the offside line superimposed - David Villa’s lower leg, at least, is offside. His foot is beyond the line, and only the Portuguese defender’s arm (which doesn’t count) is even touching the line. But it was close and difficult to spot from the linesman’s POV.
I’m also not sure the linesman even saw the back heel. It would have been through a cloud of players and the ball movement didn’t really change. Would have been very difficult to call correctly, unlike some of the other blown calls this tournament.
Yeah, I’m happy to file it under “technically offside but uncallable”. Maybe it falls within the nebulous category “level” (because it is extremely unlikely that two players are actually level).
I do not believe there is added time for substitutions - they are considered part of the run of play. Just like there is no added time for goal kicks, corner kicks, free kicks and the like. Only for injuries and extended goal celebrations, AFAIK.
From the Laws of The Game:
Allowance is made in either period for all time lost through:
• substitution(s)
• assessment of injury to players
• removal of injured players from the field of play for treatment
• wasting time
• any other cause
The allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee.
*Referees tend to follow guidelines, which are that for every goal or substitution you should allow 30 seconds and then add a minute or two for injuries and/or time-wasting, if they have occurred. *
Since Euro 96 the rule has been 30 seconds per substitution, I believe. This page says the same thing.
Y a ti también colega – love to see a Spanish speaking team taking this one. Well, obviously I have a particular one in mind. 
And to show what I know about footy, Del Bosque remained true to his double pivot and two forwards…and yet we played, by far, our best match of the tournament.
Apologies for getting the Portugal keeper’s name wrong in my hasty response to Ivan. Even in defeat he was my MOM. Never really seen b4 – was used to Vítor Baía being their fixture at goal, but this Eduardo guy is awesome! I see a big club transfer in his near future. I mean, Braga?
If you can make it through two days of withdrawals you’ll live. Quarters begin on Friday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAA2VL_MuhM Spanish player faking getting hit by Portugal player.
That video conveniently starts after the alleged foul. I don’t know if he was faking it, but on replays there was a possible movement of the elbow towards the face. I can believe that there was contact, and I can also believe that the Spanish player milked it for all it was worth. But he did seem quite incensed, even after the guy was sent off. Maybe just a particularly good actor.
Yeah, this video gives a better view of the whole incident. Unfortunately, there’s no good close-up of the whole thing, so we can’t really tell what sort of contact occurred between the elbow and the Capdevila’s head.
When they showed the replays during the game, i was sure the Spaniard took an egregious dive; now i’m not quite so sure.
Well there you go - ignorance fought! Thanks. 
Appears we have a few Spain bashing posters on-board. Bash on. Fact remains we’re one of the cleanest playing teams on the pitch as we got our very first (and the last team to do so) today – Xabi Alonso, deservedly so.
Other than that, obviously we’re bound to get fouled a hell of a lot more than other teams – after all that’s what tiqui-taca does, tires and annoys the hell out of other teams with overwhelming possession and fruitless chases.
I love it. No Pepto for me till at least Saturday. 