FIFA World Cup 2010

[Jimbuna]

Fabio Capello walks into a bar.

Sorry I mean job centre.
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If anyone missed the match and forgot to set their Sky + you can easily recreate it by taking a dump, staring at it for ninety minutes and yelling about a linesman.
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No wonder Rooney's been scoring in training, as Capello claims.

He's been playing against England's defence.

[papa_smurf]

Looks like Capello is staying, as the FA can't afford the £12millon pay out he would get, if he left.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by papa_smurf

Looks like Capello is staying, as the FA can't afford the £12millon pay out he would get, if he left.

They should never have extended his contract after England were assured qualification, his existing one took him beyond the tournament

I'm sick of all these crap foreign managers for England. If we had an ENGLISH manager, who played ENGLISH football we would have saved the humiliation of yesterday by not qualifying in the first place.
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I heard that the England team are flying into Glasgow International as they will at least get some applause there.
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Frank Lampard walks into a bar, sorry I meant sauntered into a bar, sorry I actually meant to say he strolled into a bar, wait I meant to say he in fact quickly shot into a bar. It doesn't matter, the point is he still went in.
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I`ve just finshed watching some hardcore pornography; `English girls dominated by 11 German men`...which coincidentally was aired on primetime TV yesterday.

[Lord_magerius]

A fan of sickipedia are we Jim

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Lord_magerius

A fan of sickipedia are we Jim

I've been known to frequent that site on occasion

[Lord_magerius]

I do rather enjoy it. Good to see the dutch got through as well, looking forward to their next game
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What do you get when you cross a goal line, with a football?

According to Fifa, F*ck all.

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by Lord_magerius

I do rather enjoy it. Good to see the dutch got through as well, looking forward to their next game

yep

glad to see that we are finally regaining some of our old strength
We have had some great moments in this match, unfortunately it didn't go too well all the time (especially in our defense).
Still, not a bad match

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

Using the technology takes away the human factor of a football game.

HunterICX

I agree. This is the difference between a sport and a business.

American Football has become a business so the use of technology is called for. Unfortunately this technology makes the referees obsolete. I expect that soon, there will be no more refs on the field, but all of them will be on control rooms with their 50 cameras.

Soccer is still a sport and should remain so. Sports are judged by humans and human error is part of the sport. All we can do is try to mitigate the human error by, perhaps, increasing the number of officials judging the game so as to reduce the chance that a ref will miss something.

Another difference between American Football and Soccer is the pace of the game. American Football moves a lot slower and has many many stoppages due to the concept of discrete plays. where instant replays can be more easily used. The pace of soccer moves too fast and has a more fluid pace and the sport would be ruined if the play had to be stopped after every call.

[kranz]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Another difference between American Football and Soccer is the pace of the game. American Football moves a lot slower and has many many stoppages due to the concept of discrete plays. where instant replays can be more easily used. The pace of soccer moves too fast and has a more fluid pace and the sport would be ruined if the play had to be stopped after every call.

c'mon...how often do situations like the one with Lampard's goal happen in a match? I'm against stopping the game and watching a replay by the referee but there are easier methods like "did the ball cross the line"-if it did, the referee gets sth like an immediate signal and voila...No need to stop the game-besides there are plenty of situations(polish, german league, champions league)where decisions are taken back bcoz side referee saw "sth" and communicated(yeah i know-science-fiction...)with the main referee. Yestarday I heard a Fifa official answering the question: how about introducing any modern technology into the issue of "goal or not". And his answer was: we will not introduce TV replays bcoz of safety reasons of the fans... that explains much...

[Herr-Berbunch]

The buzz in tennis doesn't impede, nor does a photo finish at the horses. I'm not suggesting the officials should go away and watch the whole 90 mins on TV before giving a verdict on the match, but a simple did it cross the line or not technology would be less unjust.

[papa_smurf]

Heres a few England jokes I just read - enjoy:

"Distraught David Blaine's record of doing nothing in a box for a month has just been broken by Wayne Rooney"

"Oxo are making a new product. It comes in a white box with a red cross on it & is called laughing stock"

"Why didn't the chicken cross the road? 'Cos FIFA said it didn't."

[Skybird]

Football is a business, a multi-billion dollar machine. and the use of video evidence in field hockey, ice hockey and american football does not hurt the sports. The referees (!) fully support it. The audience fully support it. No excitement, no drama has been taken away by that oh so very game-crippling "technology?Eeeeek!" . Referees in field hockey say the quality of the general judgment standard has improved, the fans fully embrace the concept. In field hockey, each team has the right to call for the video evidence once per halftime or per match.

FIFA's Blatter seems to change his stand, I read this morning, now calling for investigating goal checking tehcnology. Two matches in the KO-round have been game-decisevly influenced by refree's misjudgement, and absence of imminent video evidence/chipped ball. Accepting that is a violation of spartsmanship. It is unfair. It is a betrayal of the teams, the sports, and the audience. It has economic and fincial consequences for teams that earn money by playing at tournaments.

This is not about that precious human factor in sports - this is about ideologically motivated fundamental opposition to add a change for the better - because of stubborness, and irrational sentiments that already have been shown ad absurdum in other sports. Other sports show that the arugment against goal control technology are - absurd and unvalid.

If you demand that there is should be a chance in every match that goals are given or denied although the option exists to clear it up immediately, you demand that the possible betraying of a team over it's success earned with the means of sports should be allowed, and that the possible undeserved success of a team that it has not earned with the means of sports should be accepted, and that both scenarios should take place from time to time at the cost of the disadvanatged team. You are playing a massive foul yourself by supporting this questiionable opinion.

"Human factor in sports", pah. With a chipped ball or video evidence, it remains to be as human or non-human and it stays to be as much business or not, as before. You just add back a bit more fairness and justice back to it. Room for questionable referee decisions still remains - en masse. Match results still can be messed up by referees giving free kicks were none was deserved, or not giving that corner although it should have been given. that should keep those people thinking football is about the referees' humanity happy.

Come back to your senses, guys. no sky is falling,. no world will find no end. Just a bit more fairness brougzht into a game, a bit mor ejstice, a bit more sportsmanship. Invalid goals, or goals illegitimatly scored - are no part of the sports. whatever works best, should be chosen as a solution. If thatb is a video control of the goal area, okay. If that is a chipped ball, fine.I personally prefer video evidence, so that the scene can be shown to the audience. A chipped ball may just trigger discussions about "technology not working" , and software being manipulated. Irrational probably, but very likely, since the opinion against the use of such tools in egneral already shows how much irraionality there is.

What cannot be is that FIFA yesterday ruled that critical scenes will no longer be shown on video walls in the stadium. that is just trtying to avoid and delay the discussion for even lponger, by deleting the options to form a reasonable opinion on a given situation. It shows how verymuch in the defence FIFA already is - an act of despair and distration it is.

[Skybird]

http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentar...ersdelikt.html

This essay (German) touches an issue that so far is not being debated at all: the intended betraying by players who intentionally use unfair mean (hand) to score goals. Henry's hand-goal during the qualification match against Ireeland last novembre, or Maradona's handgoal in the championship 1996. Maradone mocks and shows off with that goal until today, admitting it and calling it the hand of God. He is admired for that. Is this cheating and betraying acceptable in sports? Germany's keeper after the match against Egnlöand (I saw that interview), admitted frankly that after the ball bounced behind him, he fetched it up and intentionally acted as if nothing had happened, saying that he hoped the referee would not see it.

Is this the "human factor" in sports? Fairplay?

the author of that essay quotes the example of a certain Robbie Fowler, liverpool, who was rewarded a penlaty after a "foul" against him in 1996. He told the referee that it was no foul at all, but the refree denied to chnage his mind.Fowleer than shot the pently in a fashion that the keeper could catch the ball.

That is fairplay. and it is not the norm, unfortunately. For each Robbie Fowler, there are ten incidents where cheaters try cheat to get penalties, freekicks, invalid goals.

Human factor in sports? Yes. Of the - in sports - worst possible kind. Let's do not accept this kind of behaviour. For the sake of fairplay, and sportsmanship.

the author of that essay is professor for bio-ethics at Princton university.

[Skybird]

Just realised there was an English original:

Shortly before half-time in the World
Cup elimination match between England and Germany on June 27, the English midfielder Frank Lampard had a shot at goal that struck the crossbar and bounced down onto the ground, clearly over the goal line. The goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer, grabbed the ball and put it back into play. Neither the referee nor the linesman, both of whom were still coming down the field – and thus were poorly positioned to judge – signaled a goal, and play continued.
After the match, Neuer gave this account of his actions: “I tried not to react to the referee and just concentrate on what was happening. I realized it was over the line and I think the way I carried on so quickly fooled the referee into thinking it was not over.”
To put it bluntly: Neuer cheated, and then boasted about it.
By any normal ethical standards, what Neuer did was wrong. But does the fact that Neuer was playing football mean that the only ethical rule is: “Win at all costs”?
In soccer, that does seem to be the prevailing ethic. The most famous of these incidents was Diego Maradona’s goal in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup match against England, which he later described as having been scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God.” Replays left no doubt that it was the hand of Maradona that scored the goal. Twenty years later, he admitted in a BBC interview that he had intentionally acted as if it were a goal, in order to deceive the referee.
Something similar happened last November, in a game between France and Ireland that decided which of the two nations went to the World Cup. The French striker Thierry Henry used his hand to control the ball and pass to a teammate, who scored the decisive goal. Asked about the incident after the match, Henry said: “I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him.”
But is it? Why should the fact that you can get away with cheating mean that you are not culpable? Players should not be exempt from ethical criticism for what they do on the field, any more than they are exempt from ethical criticism for cheating off the field – for example, by taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Sports today are highly competitive, with huge amounts of money at stake, but that does not mean it is impossible to be honest. In cricket, if a batsman hits the ball and one of the fielders catches it, the batsman is out. Sometimes when the ball is caught the umpire cannot be sure if the ball has touched the edge of the bat. The batsman usually knows and traditionally should “walk” – leave the ground – if he knows that he is out.
Some still do. The Australian batsman Adam Gilchrist “walked” in the 2003 World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka, although the umpire had already declared him not out. His decision surprised some of his teammates but won applause from many cricket fans.
An Internet search brought me just one clear-cut case of a footballer doing something equivalent to a batsman walking. In 1996, Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler was awarded a penalty for being fouled by the Arsenal goalkeeper. He told the referee that he had not been fouled, but the referee insisted that he take the penalty kick. Fowler did so, but in a manner that enabled the goalkeeper to save it.
Why are there so few examples of such behavior from professional footballers? Perhaps a culture of excessive partisanship has trumped ethical values. Fans don’t seem to mind if members of their own team cheat successfully; they only object when the other side cheats. That is not an ethical attitude. (Though, to their credit, many French football followers, from President Nicolas Sarkozy down, expressed their sympathy for Ireland after Henry’s handball.)
Yes, we can deal with the problem to some extent by using modern technology or video replays to review controversial refereeing decisions. But, while that will reduce the opportunity for cheating, it won’t eliminate it, and it isn’t really the point. We should not make excuses for intentional cheating in sports. In one important way, it is much worse than cheating in one’s private life. When what you do will be seen by millions, revisited on endless video replays, and dissected on television sports programs, it is especially important to do what is right.
How would football fans have reacted if Neuer had stopped play and told the referee that the ball was a goal? Given the rarity of such behavior in football, the initial reaction would no doubt have been surprise. Some German fans might have been disappointed. But the world as a whole – and every fair-minded German fan too – would have had to admit that he had done the right thing.
Neuer missed a rare opportunity to do something noble in front of millions of people. He could have set a positive ethical example to people watching all over the world, including the many millions who are young and impressionable. Who knows what difference that example might have made to the lives of many of those watching? Neuer could have been a hero, standing up for what is right. Instead, he is just another footballer who is very skillful at cheating.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
www.project-syndicate.org

Video evidence does not chnage the root of this problem, nor does it change the fact that referees are human and can err - in best intentions. Perspective distorts what they see, a fully hit ball bouncing on the ground touches that piece of ground for only one or two hundreths of a second. Maybe thatb is why so many referees would welcome if the get a bit of assistance.

But video evidence can reduce the fallout from cheating players and erring referees. And that would help to make the sports a bit fairer. and maybe, if being used on a broader front, would help to install a new, ethically more valuable behaviour code as well.

[goldorak]

What is really depressing is that rugby is as dynamic and physical a sport as football, yet fairplay rules that sport whereas is football as you just mentioned fairplay is not part of the "culture". Even the players admit it.