DSYoungEsq it’s getting a bit better. I imagine in 20 years the US will have a halfway decent soccer culture. MLS is a fairly stable league now, unlike the NASL. It’s only 12 years old, once people that have grown up with it start having kids there’ll be a difference. Take a look at Michael Bradley, his father might be clueless, but he grew up with the soccer culture and he was one of the best midfielders in Holland this past season. That or we have immigrants and sons of immigrants like Jozy Altidoe, Freddy Adu, and Guiseppe Rossi make up the US team.
Back on topic. I’m a bit surprised at the disappointment in Poland. 2-0 is about as good as I could have expected from them. They’re clearly one of the weakest teams in the tournament IMO. The US embarrassed them in Poland earlier this year.I’ll be dropping out of this thread now. I’m recording the Italy-Holland game. Stupid work, interfering with my soccer-watching ability.
It’s the real tragedy of the BBC’s coverage that the combination of Motty and Lawrenson actually makes me pine for Gray, whom I really can’t stand. How did it come to this? Where are all the decent commentators?
Actually tomorrow is when the tournament properly starts what with us meeting the Ruskies. Flag and kit out already, will be watching with fifty or so of my closest Spanish fans
As for Romania, as they showed France 2day, and with the way Italy’s defense played today, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if they survived the Group Of Death. Besides, I’d welcome a quarters encounter against them* as opposed to the hated French and/or Italians.
*Provided we win our group and Romania finishes second after Holland of course.
Holland using Italy for target practice just now was a beauty to behold. Other than the 55th-75th min chunk, they never stopped attacking.
I thought V Nistelrooy’s goal was offside, but it matters not. They were so the better team (and I’m not just saying that 'cause I watched the game in my loud orange #9 Jersey).
Maybe they will manage to keep it together this time. I want to see them beat Germany.
Seeing as this thread seems to have been adopted for ongoing discussion of matches, perhaps a spoiler warning in the title might be appropriate? They seem pretty much inevitable, and it’s going to be a bit of a pain spoiler boxing everything. Or we could start a new one, I s’pose, but there’s never usually appetite for more than one football thread around here.
Spoilers ho*
Anyway, that was a cracker. More than made up for the stodge we’ve seen so far.
Interesting (lack of) call for offside on the first goal, though. Some people have popped up with a law 11.11 which says that players off the field still count for offside unless they’re off with the referee’s permission (e.g. to receive treatment), but I can only find this in the USSF’s laws of the game, not FIFA’s. By contrast, FIFA’s laws contains a paragraph saying:
It’s reasonable to infer from this that if the “stepping out” is not deliberate then the attacker would indeed be offside. After all, it would make no sense to penalise someone for trying to exploit a non-existent rule. Not conclusive, though, to my mind; I think the laws are pretty unclear on this question. All good fun for the phone ins, anyway.
I’ve been following the raging debate over law 11.11 too. If it’s correct that it wasn’t offside, though, how come this has never come up before? Doesn’t seem such an unlikely scenario, and even the Dutch players thought it was offside.
Anyway, good game, although I think it’s overstating things to say that the Dutch “thrashed” Italy. It was a bit closer than the scoreline suggests.
I’m mildly irritated by comments I’ve read along the lines of this game being the fillip that a so-far lacklustre tournament needed, and so forth [ETA not directed at previous poster]. It only started on Saturday, FFS! It gets worse every time, this clamouring for tournaments to be instant classics. Just enjoy the games, or not, as they come.
Everybody was saying the first Dutch goal was offside, can anybody clarify? Does a player really not count if they step off the field? That sounds like a total loophole to me, you could have defenders standing on the posts, and just inside the goal and they don’t count? That’s bullshit.
The goal was onside, for the very reason that a player CANNOT extract themself from the game by stepping over the back line. Yeah, it’s obscure, it rarely happens, but it’s true nonetheless. Fair goal, even if Van Nistelrooy didn’t believe it was going to be allowed himself, at first.
And yes, Holland didn’t THRASH Italy per se, but they sure dominated and deserved to win. I’m well pleased.
No, I don’t think we can clarify at the moment. The main FIFA laws are vague, containing an at-best mild implication that players off the pitch inadvertently do not count, as well as saying that stepping off deliberately is unsporting behaviour. Gerhard Kapl, the chairman of the Austrian refereeing commission has backed the decision, citing a rule 11.4.1 of “the refereeing code”, which he claims says “an opposing player cannot be offside when one of the last two defenders has left the field of play.” He doesn’t say what refereeing code, however, and I can’t find it anywhere, only links to stories quoting him. What is a certainty is that anyone quoting law 11.11 at you is wrong, because it’s entirely irrelevant unless the USSF have taken control of UEFA somehow. Perhaps there is a comparable document issued by UEFA, but I certainly can’t find it, and not for want of looking.
Your point about defenders in the goalmouth is a good one, though, and one which I will be stealing and presenting as my own at work tomorrow without compunction.
ETA: just to clarify, I certainly agree that the player ought to be considered for offside on the grounds of common sense - I’m just trying to find out what the relevant rules say.
I should add: all kudos to the Swedish ref, who did an admirable job keeping an at times very physical game in check. Lots of refs would have killed it by blowing the whistle for every rough tackle, but he didn’t. Top job.
I spent most of the day obsessively refreshing the BBC - and I’m so happy I taped the match (matches, actually, but I’m not even going to bother with the other one. ).
I wonder if, way in the back of their head, the referee and linesmen were thinking something along the lines of, “Y’know, if that Italian had gotten back onto the field of play instead of lying around like a dead fish, perhaps he could have put van Nistlerooy into an offside position.”
Just sayin’, is all, especially after I saw how vociferously the “injured” Panucci made his protests.
For the record, it’s not USSF law 11.11; USSF uses FIFA’s Laws of the Game. It’s section 11.11 of USSF’s Advice to Referees, which is basically a guide to how the Laws apply to specific situations.
And the situation has come up before (seems like just the last World Cup or maybe previous), but I think this is just a particularly harsh looking example with the defender so far over the end line, making no attempt to recover, and the rest of the defenders unwittingly pulling up and leaving a man behind. Had the man collapsed just over the end line or was limping back to the field, it would have been much more understandable, though functionally the same.
Well you don’t agree with me. I think he should be considered onside. What reason other than sour grapes can you put forth as to why he should be offside?
Without getting into the match itself and also not bothering to look-up FIFA/UEFA rules, I do believe Ruud’s goal was valid. Hard call indeed, but point being there was still one Italian defender beyond Buffon – and critically, he wasn’t there on account of any Dutch foul but rather by Buffon’s own doing.
Worth watching the replay after the fact…too easy to miss real time.
So anyone else on the Red Fury’s wagon? Should we fail, go Orange ! 'about time we came alive!
I’m not following the Euro 2008, but I am aware of it because when I go hunting for information about the Asia group’s games, the European stuff is everywhere I look.
o:o
).