Absolutely! 
Obviously, asterion, you hardly need my permission. I do think complaining about officiating is part of the fun of any supporting event.
I just have issues with someone like amanset coming in here to say that the World Cup is a “such a shit sport.” It doesn’t seem to me to be too much to ask for people like him to please take such comments to a different thread. In general, it seems to me that that short of thread-shitting is frowned upon on the SDMB, and rightly so.
I even said “please.”
More than once.
Carry on.
A bit late to the party, because of… well, the party :D.
Explanation for the colours:
Officially Spain at home, so in red while the Dutch play in the away strip which is blue. Apparently that is too little of a contrast (especially when watched in black and white), so Spain would switch to their away strip… which is black, and doesn’t help much. So they required their third strip which is the white we saw today.
Why the dutch didn’t just go white, whit spain in red… I don’t know. But this was the explanation give on dutch tv.
Here’s a theory for you. It is obvious to pretty much everyone that a quick referral to a TV official could cut out most of the howler decisions. Just like existing technology could have instigated much earlier in order to confirm goal-line decisions.
Many simple and obvious tweak can me made without fundamentally changing the nature of the game but…and here’s the theory, FIFA and Sepp Blatter (AKA “the C**T”) only ever warm to them when FIFA is facing yet another round of corruption and incompetency allegations. Deflecting attention from their wrongdoings.
So prepare yourself for Blatter suddenly becoming a fan of designated refs, TV officials and post-match punishments in the near future.
Weirdly, I find enjoyment in all aspects of the game, not just winning.
Belgian, I take it?
No, because I am watching the World Cup. I do, however, reserve the right to moan when the luddite nature of FIFA and terrible refereeing brings it down. Note, as well, that I didn’t say football was a shit sport. International Football, due to the way FIFA runs things, is these days ruined by terrible refereeing which could easily - and simply - be solved by embracing the twentieth century. That in this day and age we can have terrible decisions like the Brazil penalty is an embarrassment.
EVERY OTHER sport has solved this.
Yeah, your Mum is coming round in an hour or so. About time we put up another video on the site.
The thread is called “Brasil 2014”. I have posted about Brasil 2014. There have already been two terrible penalty decisions and we’ve only had four games.
It isn’t a pathetic example, it is an example of a problem that has been solved in every other sport and only now, in 2014, probably due to how bad that decision was, they’ve allowed technology to be used in one specific circumstance. There’s still no use of replays for dives, off the ball incidents like Costa’s headbutt in the Netherlands- Spain game (and the dive that Martins took after it, should have been a red for Costa and a yellow for Martins), dubious offside decisions and whatnot. These are still problems that need fixed, they are problems that have needed fixing for decades and yet FIFA still does nothing.
I think it speaks volumes that I was extremely impressed by the attitude of the Australians. They got back up straight away every single time they went down. No messing. It is unfortunate that a team like that is in the minority.
I apologise for posting in the “Brasil 2014” thread with an on-topic post that isn’t “ooh wow football is ace”. I mistakenly thought, over the fifteen years I have been coming to this site, that it is a place for discussion. Apparently you just want everything to be “oooh pretty lights”. Unfortunately for you, I don’t. And everything I have written has been on topic and so I shall continue posting my thoughts about a sport I have followed for decades.
Take issues all you want, in the post you are moaning about I made on-topic observations about the standard of refereeing in the opening game.
I posted about the standard of refereeing in Brasil 2014 in a thread called “Brasil 2014”. I am clearly a very bad man.
Your problem is that you made an assumption: that I was one of the anti-football people on here, like those that come into threads about TV shows and declare that they don’t own a TV and are above all that. In fact it is the opposite, I have watched the game for decades and care passionately about it, which is why I don’t like to see FIFA allowing it to become a mockery.
Was it just me, or was Cahill whinging after every single play in the Australia-Chile match? It was getting pretty annoying.
No, my problem is that you came into the the World Cup thread to call it “such a shit sport.” That’s threadshitting, which apparently you are not mature enough to own up to. I don’t care if you support some League One team or think telling someone to “sod off” is appropriate behavior in the Game Room, but politely asking you to take your threadshitting comments elsewhere, as I did, is reasonable.
Colombia v. Greece. Could be interesting…
Yeah. Looks like it’s going to be another dull 0-0 stalema…
Oh.
I’m looking forward to England vs. Italy later today. I’d say Italy has the better team, but it’s far from guaranteed - England definitely has a fair shot.
Another random question… I’ve noticed with 3 South American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia) that during the national anthem, the music stops, and then the team and the crowd keeps singing for a fair length of time, very excitedly.
Is there some kind of unofficial second verse to their anthems or something?
Oh, I hope so. England are my second side, for kinship and my love of the Premier League.
In other news, the early goal notwithstanding, this GRE v. COL affair is indeed turning out to be a bit dull.
At the half…the game picked up quite a bit in the late minutes from its earlier slow pace as Greece started to threaten. Colombia seem likely to hold onto the points, though.
Wow, Samaras falls over attacking in the box and asserts immediately there was no contact…
Sportsmanship? Is that a thing?
M is for the mistakes we sometimes make
Surely a bit of controversy is part of the games appeal
– The Referee’s Alphabet, Half Man Half Biscuit
Very rarely it is a thing. Miroslav Klose conceded to having scored a goal with his hand in the Italian league and won a fair play award for it some time ago. But that’s an exception, and Klose has always been an exceptionally fair player.
Costa Rica are better than I expected. Denied a stonewall penalty. Not sure if that’s good or bad for England. Perhaps Uruguay just aren’t very good. I wasn’t impressed with them at the Confed Cup last year.
Anyway, I thought I’d post some unofficial World Cup anthems:
Fair Play Trophy, MJ Hibbert and the Validators;
Begging You As A Friend, Boothby Graffoe;
The Andy Townsend Rap, Goldie-Looking Chain;
1966 And All That, Half Man Half Biscuit.
Not exactly Three Lions, or World in Motion, but all entertaining.
Costa Rica are playing pretty well so far against a Suarez-less Uruguay. But Uruguay have had the only real chance. But now a penalty! Forlan to take it?