do u think the referee was fair to the ghana team?

Question

the referee was very cruel and cheated for the brazil team. am l right?

Answer 1

i supported brazil but i do agree that the referee was abit unfair to the ghana.... but i think ghana played a good game. they fought well.... they might have lost the match, but they won my respect.

Answer 2

The 2nd goal did not change the fact that Brasil was GOING to win this game...they made that apparent at the first goal in the first 5-6 minutes..and their last goal was NOT off sides...so what difference did it make in the end? NONE... do you know why Brasil does NOT get the slide tackling yellow cards like the others? because for the better part...they hit ball and not the player..this comes after the amount of years of experience and matches..neither the US, Ghana, or Australia have enough experience in World Cup competition in comparison to the bigger countries and it means a LOT in the more competitive rounds..

I saw a couple times where Australia was complaining because they didn't get a call for a tackle..that they had gotten against Japan...that is because during the JPN/AUS game..they WERE HITTING the players..that was either dirty or it was due to a lack of experience...Brasil, Germany, Italy and Argentina however have the experience and KNOW how to slide appropriately...so inexperienced teams think something is unfair..when in all reality...the other team did it RIGHT..and that is why the fouls were not called...and are the same reason that it WAS called when the inexperienced teams did the same thing..

to say that the refs cheat..is a very serious accusation that attacks the integrity of the sport and the tournament...refs are human beings and will make some calls and not others..they're not perfect...BUT...when it decides as to whether a team will advance to the next round or go home, if it directly affects the outcome of the game..foul in the box etc..then it becomes contraversial.. that happens in every sport..(NBA Finals? Superbowl 2006? NCAA Tourney?)

A good team has to not only beat the other team but take authoritative power out of the hands of the refs so they can't decide the game for the other team as much as they'd like..they also have to beat the climate...if you are good enough..you factor that in before stepping on the pitch/diamond/court/gridlines etc...

Answer 3

Its Big Nation syndrome- favouring the big guys.

He did wave his cards at Ghana quite a bit but I am questioning why both linesmen ignored offsides that resulted in two goals for Brazil.

Answer 4

I only saw the second goal but I can tell you only a blind man couldn´t see that off side!! That`s how it goes: big teams always have to make it to the finals... That`s why I hope Portugal wins the WC!! (That and the fact that I´m portuguese!!!)

Answer 5

hell no! they not only didnt call offsides when they mattered but they never called brazils fouls either...and there were a lot that couldve helped ghana out.

Answer 6

it hasn t been on brazil side...

ghana lost for their weak defence, not for thanks to brazil surely

Answer 7

FIFA NEEDS TO MAKE SOME BIG CHANGES TO KEEP SUCH TRAVESTIES FROM REPEATEDLY HAPPENING ON THE WORLD CUP STAGE!!!!


No, I don't think Ghana got a fair shake. I agree with you 100%! We can acknowledge that referees are imperfect human beings, nevertheless, FIFA's refs in this World Cup are making imperfection an art form. I'd guess that 97% correct calls would satisfy most of us, but it seems to me that 51% INCORRECT calls are the norm.

I am an ex-referee who has many bones to pick with FIFA, the worldwide professional soccer organization. Remembering that the "World Cup" is NOT the final 64 games (including consolation) among the final 32 teams but rather includes the full 2 1/2 year process among 200+ nations (there are about ten more teams involved in FIFA then in the United Nations!) then here is the big picture as all soccer/football fans need to realize:

Any casual observer can see the following are true during the World Cup, supposedly the showplace of FIFA's efforts . . .

1. The European teams in general get far more calls for them then they deserve.

2. The European teams in general get far more serious calls (PKs, close-in direct kicks, yellow cards to opponents, red cards to opponents) for them then they deserve. Anyone seeing the Italy-Australia 90th minute PK debacle knows what I mean. Australia is the fittest team in the world, the cleanest team and represented the best of what FIFA and soccer were all about. The referee was a good 30 yards from the play as the crow flies and had no reason to call a foul except Italy's great reputation and to make up for his own (good call) send off of an Italian player in the first half. This game showed the true weakness of the FIFA approach to restoring the balance between offense and defense . . . the team that represented everything good about positive play-to-win, clean soccer was eliminated and the Italians (who repeatedly dived and pulled their opponents down on top of them to make it appear to a distant referee that they had been brutally fouled) advanced.

3. The top 5-6 established teams (Brazil, Argentina, England, France, Italy, Germany: the teams with recent or plentiful success) get far more calls for them then they deserve. Your Ghana game vs. Brazil was like that. Ghana was a spirited team very much up for this game. Mighty Brazil looked like it was sleepwalking. Ghana had all the run of the early play and only the referee actions swung the early action for Brazil, time and time again. I'm not saying Brazil was a lesser team, but Ghana outplayed Brazil until the referee's constant unwarranted fouls agains them piled up to slow down their attacks while three crucial non-calls for Brazil made thing's easier for the South American team.

4. The top 5-6 established teams get far more SERIOUS calls for them then they deserve.

5. More than anything else, the home team all throughout the 2 1/2 year process gets both far more calls for them and far more serious calls for them than they deserve.

6. None of these facts is coincidence. None of these facts are the result of referee conspiracy. They are all a result of the system of refereeing and the rules of soccer which basically FIFA has failed to seriously address since about 1970. All efforts to deal with the inbalance between offense and defense have been cosmetic and have NOT addressed the problem. While the other statements can be seen by neutral observers and merely counting fouls . . . this statement is NOT intuitively obvious and I'll deal with it in more depth later . . . .

7. As the average number of goals per game started to seriously dip culminating in the 1982 Barcelona World Cup . . . FIFA had to face the fact that the game of soccer was becoming boring and that cynical and brutal defense was far more likely to be a predictor of World Cup success than imagination, flair and offensive team work. Since that time all sorts of cosmetic measures have been taken mostly to eliminate the gross time-wasting and unattractive practice of kicking a ball 60 yards back to one's goalkeeper when ahead 1-0, or 2-1 whatever. Goalkeepers nowadays cannot pick up such balls or juggle up such balls into their hands but most play them with feet or head.

The cosmetic rule-changes have NOT worked. The biggest thing going is that a soccer pitch is IMMENSE and covering 22 athletes on that field is a daunting challenge. When in doubt, and under those conditions doubt is everywhere especially as the referee gets tired and cannot keep close to the play, when in doubt, the call will tend to be a "popular" call rather than necessarily the right one. If a play looks bad, but the ref isn't close enough to make a correct non-call, the whistle will blow. If the home team benefits by either a non-call or by blowing the whistle especially at the end of the game or the end of the first half, it's far more likely that the home team will get the nod. If a prestigious team is playing a little known team, guess who gets the call?

Here is what FIFA needs to do:

1. Employ two center referees working generally on a diagonal to cover the areas not easily seen by the two linesmen. Tennis has five officias. Playoff basketball three. American football five and during playoffs six. How can one man outrun that ball to control 22 pros on that huge pitch (about 30-35% larger than an American football field), he just can't. At least 90% of all referee's decisions from 25 yards or further distance away from the play are highly suspect. By having two referees working together to support each other but with one staying 70% of the game in one half of the field and the other staying 70% of the game in the other half, I estimate that the number of distant decisions would drop by about 90%.

2. Require center refs to rely on linesmen for more foul calls and respect the linesman's offsides calls virtually 100%. In one game with about two minutes to go, the clear and obvious offside that was flagged but disallowed by the center ref resulted in an undeserved goal that again punished the more creative team and sent the dirtier team advancing to the round of 16. I'd have to see my taped games to remember which one: Tunisia's elimination comes to mind but I could be wrong. In any case, using the linesmen as full-fledged foul-calling referees WITH a WHISTLE would mean that cleaner play would be enforced over 100% of the field.

3. On advantage plays, any serious fouls would be enforced after the play with cards or direct kicks, etc. If there is an attack going and a defender commits a brutal foul, the play should continue as long as the offense has an attack going, but even if a goal results, the defender needs to be fully punished after the play.

4. Keep the time on the field. Stop the clock as appropriate and otherwise play under the more just timekeeping regulations we've seen in prior World Cups.

5. For all PROFESSIONAL and ADULT NATIONAL team games worldwide, make the goal larger (keep its present size for all other games even including youth national team games): The soccer goal has been based on the 1869 English original rules for far too long. In 1869, there were NO athletes in the everyday sense of the world as we know them today. Certainly nothing like the professional standards of today's pros. The old English system of eight foot high and eight yards wide for the goalmouth is totally inadequate. Making the present goal ten meters wide would probably be good enough; but making it nine meters wide and three meters high would probably be better. Today's defenses and especially today's athletic, well-equipped (Gloves? this was never part of the original game), super-well-trained and bigger, stronger goalkeeper is just too formidable compared to the goalkeepers of past generations.

Why am I making these suggestions? The main reasons why THIS particular world cup have seen more chicanery and cynical defense and more blown calls than any before are two: A. the new rule that keeps the clock running througout play whereas the older better rule saw timeouts for PKs, setting up formal direct and indirect kicks, injuries, goals and goal celebrations, etc. If you saw the Portugal-Holland game, the last 30 minutes of the game saw literally 14 minutes on non-play due to Portugal's chicanery: diving, pretend injuries, time-wasting, pulling opponent's on top of oneself to stimulate serious calls against them etc. Just get your replay of the game and you'll see what I mean. The referee had no control of the game and it showed. B. Every World Cup final tournament sees an emphasis on making calls to punish cynical defense and brutal defense, however the 2006 WC has gone overboard on this emphasis as we all have noticed. As a result the large number of blown calls one sees in World Cup finals (more on that later) are no longer just blown fouls but PKs, red cards, yellow cards, and important direct and indirect kicks that might not have occurred in previous Cups.

Instead of making a big emphasis on fouls during the final 64 games of the Final tournament, FIFA would do much better to insist upon the same standards for the complete 2 1/2 year process. Is it fair to players or refs to change the way the game is played for one month, about 4% of the entire world cup process?

Answer 8

no way jose!!

Answer 9

NOOOOOOOO....he was very cruel ................................please select me as a best answer...............You are right 100%