Round of 16 Wrap Up

I'm running a bit behind on the end of my round of 16 review and some of you have asked for it, so here goes...

Italy vs. Australia

Men sucking their thumbs are clearly the villains of a story.

The referee was involved in two major decisions this entire game and he managed to get both of them wrong. First of all, the Materazzi red card was dumb and totally uncalled for, putting Italy at a disadvantage for what might have been a yellow card offense and nothing more. Then you get to the bit of acting at the end that lead to the penalty putting Italy into the quarters. Unlike some other penalties in this World Cup, this one wasn't one of those "are you out of your mind?" calls, but was more of "that's definitely the wrong call according to the rules." If a foul occurred there - and you can argue this one on both sides until you are blue in the face - it was obstruction, which should have lead to a free kick from a really difficult spot instead of a penalty kick. It still gives Italy a scoring chance in exchange for a flop, but it doesn't decide the game, which is what the ref did.

I was right in that the Aussies gave Italy everything they could handle in this game and more, it just made me sad to see them bow out on something so dubious. As for the Italians, dubious is all they do...

Switzerland vs. Ukraine
My sources behind the scenes have informed me of the following: In addition to the memo to the ref that FIFA sent before this game instructing him to give no cards until after the 60th minute, there was an additional memo sent to the teams that told them all players completing dangerous through balls from the midfield into a good attacking position would be executed by firing squad after the game with no possibility of appeal. Sometimes serious measures have to be taken, I guess. Good thing no one defied them in this game, or it might have looked like football.

Believe it or not, I watched 120 minutes of this game and then turned it off. I just couldn't watch the penalty kicks and care anymore. Ukraine won. I hope desperately that they don't win again. Has any team had a more improbable, goof-grab run in this tournament? Sure, they beat Saudi Arabia by a lot. That was the only game they played remotely well in. They needed a gift penalty to score at all against Tunisia and then failed to do anything against the Swiss (who (by the way) bow out of the tournament without conceding a single goal. Now that's pretty fucked up, right there.), yet they still find themselves facing the Italians in the quarterfinals. One good game, make it to the Top 8.

Clown shoes...

Brazil vs. Ghana
If Ghana had anyone in their lineup who could finish, and if the linesman had called the double offside on Adriano's goal, this game might have been spicy even without Michael Essien. As it was, you got the best move of the tournament from Ronaldo, some mind-blowingly bad offside trap work from the Ghanaian defense, and Brazil cruise into the quarters without having played that well yet.

Spain vs. France

Patty is taking fat hits from the fountain of youth.

For the first time all tournament, France play a team where their 4-5-1 formation makes sense and they finally looked good. Go figure. In the last two games, Patrick Viera has been the real difference-maker, looking like the Viera of old, who just happened to be one of the Top 5 all-around midfielders in the game. It's been said that big men age faster than their smaller counterparts, and both for Juventus and during the early part of the Cup, Patty looked like he was 50. The last two games, Viera seems a spry and dangerous 25. It's not hard to believe that France are winning without Henry playing his best yet, but if he hits his stride for Brazil, we're certainly going to see fireworks.

The Spanish may blame Thierry Henry's flop for their failure, but they should be pointing the finger at the mirror instead. Spain had plenty of decent chances for more goals, but they simply did not convert, unexpected considering how lethal they were in Group stage. The French defense was decent but not spectacular, and if Spain had hit a single more goal at any point before Zidane's reminder of how good he is, they probably win this game. I don't believe Spain were caught unawares by how good the French are, but I do think Aragones made a hefty mistake in starting Raul as an attacking midfielder when his lineup in games 1 and 2 worked so well without Raul in there. I'm sad to see the Spaniards go - they played beautiful football and probably should have been bashing the Swiss instead of the French, but I can't complain about seeing France make it through.

With Zidane and Viera sucking full bore off the fountain of youth, this team could go all the way. One merely wonders how long the juice from the rejuvenation machine will last.

Oh, and that racist prick Aragones absolutely has to go. It's difficult to believe Spain kept him on after the first set of comments, but wanting to keep him on after a perfectly valid excuse to give him the axe is absurd. Is the entire country crazy?

Beautiful (Broken) Feedback
It seems my blurb for this entry on some of the World Cup journal communities completely left the audience behind, which was unexpected but I guess shouldn't have been. Aside from that, the post seems to have spawned quite a bit of thought from those who read it, which was exactly what it was supposed to do.

On The Pitch has a good response to it that includes a point I didn't directly address in my post itself: Perhaps the biggest failing of referees at the World Cup has been the lack of consistency. As I mentioned in my comments there, I view this one as a given. All referees are going to call things slightly differently and have to be heavily trained if you want to change it, and if FIFA can't put refs in a position to get even that right, then there's little hope for anything else.

A couple more points about yesterday's post before I actually do my work for today and get started on the Quarterfinals predictions:

* I'm not married to any and all of the ideas discussed yesterday. Of the controversial bits, I actually like the blue cards concept the best because I think it would add the most value to the product.

* In said blue cards system, yellow cards still exist for most of the fouls they exist for now. Blue are for minor offenses, yellow are for medium to major offenses, and red means Marvin K. Mooney, would you please go now.

* FIFA is clearly setting referees up to fail with the support they are delivering. With modern communication technology, mistakes like the Graham Poll not sending off a player for his second red card (in the Croatia vs. Australia match) simply should not happen. It should not be a problem for his fourth official to get his attention over the radio and give the player the boot. This whole issue feels like it’s plagued by a cloud of stupidity.