The thing is, according to the FIFA / IFAB laws* handling the ball is only an offense if it is intentional so ALL handballs are intentional (all bolding mine):
It is an offence if a player:
deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving the hand/arm towards the ball
touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised
scores in the opponents’ goal:
directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper
immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental
Whereas “CAUTIONS FOR UNSPORTING BEHAVIOUR” describes when a player should be cautioned (yellow card) for a handball:
There are different circumstances when a player must be cautioned for unsporting behaviour including if a player:
[…]
handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack
So, according to the Laws, to be an infraction at all a handball must be intentional . But it is only a yellow (or possibly red) card under the above circumstance.
Yeah. Morocco’s keeper is the real deal.
*This link is to the English FA rules but this section is identical to the Laws of the Game
If you do (and Argentina reaches it) be sure to watch the match on a tv with TDA (digital over the air signal) if you watch it on cable you’ll learn about any Argentina goal through the vibrations in the building, the screams of all your neighbors and the sound of all the claxons in the city about 20 seconds before you see it on screen (about a minute before if you are watching on the internet instead of cable tv)
Kane might be the most complete England forward of the last fifty years. I hope this doesn’t define him.
And Southgate is unquestionable the best England manager of my lifetime. His teams constantly have superb depth and pay week in tournaments despite being young. You could credit the former to the strength of the English leagues, but nobody else was able to do it as England manager. His only major mistake was going into a shell for 70 minutes in the Euro final, and even that nearly worked. His contract runs through Euro 2024, and I hope the FA give him another 4 years after that if he wants them.
To be fair, if this was the same shot as shown on US tv, then it was a still or super slow motion shot of Mbappe’s face the moment Kane’s ball sailed over. I actually predicted that people would think it was a prolonged expression of glee combined with mockery, which is what it looked like. Unless some other video emerges, I see it as an unfair depiction of Mbappe. Pictures sometimes do lie.
Kevin Keegan and Sherear say hi.
It won’t. But, unless he finally wins a trophy, it will be used as one of the examples of his failure in big games. Like the 2018 SF, the 2019 UCL Final, 2021 Euro and now this.
He also went conservative in the 2018 SF, again after going ahead early, against a technically superior team. And it failed. He would have done this again if he had gone up early, in a way conceding first made him be more tactically astute this time.
I thought England was incredibly dialed in yesterday and I give special note to the work the fullbacks put in against those fleet wingers in blue. I also felt that Foden’s work is a little underappreciated.
But kudos to France, now well positioned to win a second consecutive Cup without its great midfield from the last one and down the reigning player of the year as well.
It appears that some corruption took place recently to benefit Qatar’s standing in the EU. While this is not related directly to the World Cup, it is tangential because it implies, shockingly!, that Qatar relies on bribery for influence.
But the Brazilian ref of the ENG-FRA game who wasn’t much better is still in the pool for the final. I’ve read that the Argentinians are already complaining about probably getting a Brazilian ref.
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