BS: Football World Cup 2006

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 05:18 AM

Assuming one player has been sent off and it has gone to 10-10....

If a team had ten players and the other eleven all it would mean is that the team with ten would have a player take a second penalty earlier. In the interests of total fairness the numbers have to be equal.

The equality in the current system comes because the team with eleven players can "lose" the person they think is the worst penalty taker. The team with ten have to use theirs.

Fairest way is whenever a draw cannot tale place is to take the penalty shoot out before the kick off. Then if there is a draw, the result is plain for all to see.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Kweku
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 05:39 AM

If Zidane felt it was that insulting, I'd shrug if he sought out Materazzi after the match and settled it privately....I dunno, mabe in that walk down the field, that is exactly what I was thinking about yesternite Bill D, because if I remember correctly George Weah(Liberian) headbutted an FC Porto player for racist remarks in the dressing room. Well, George Weah is still wanted by the police in Portugal but well nobody begrudge him for the dresing room offence.

And those who talk who about this and that person being role models for children, I think children should also learn from the role models that provocation is a sin in the sight of man.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 06:05 AM

The equality in the current system comes because the team with eleven players can "lose" the person they think is the worst penalty taker. The team with ten have to use theirs.

This is nonsense. Why should the side that has not been penalised for foul play be disadvantaged at all in shoot out when there is no attempt at equality in the extra time period? The extra men are thought to be a deserved advantage in the rest of the game - so why try and introduce any form of equality at the end of extra time?

Even a side's worst penalty taker has a chance of scoring - it they are allowed to take one. They have no chance at all if they are not allowed to or have already been sent off.

If we are stuck with this method of settling drawn games why not take the opportunity to further discourage foul play and make a result more likely in the 90 minutes?

Fairest way is whenever a draw cannot tale place is to take the penalty shoot out before the kick off. Then if there is a draw, the result is plain for all to see.

Possibly, but the idea is to try to encourage sides to try and win the games in the 90 minutes and to discourage sides from placing all their players behind the ball in an attempt not to lose. A side that had already won the shoot out would have no real incentive to go all out to win and be content to ensure the other side did not win and just hang on.....Finals are supposed to be about 'sudden death'.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: alanabit
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 06:16 AM

I think the best example of how to react to that sort of provocation was provided by the German striker Rudi Völler many years ago. In a tense game, in which he was marked by Frank Rijkaard, the Dutchman spat in his face three times. Rudi Völler shouted at him incensed. He did not touch Rijkaard physically at all. The ref saw Völler shouting and sent him off for ungentlemanly conduct. As he was leaving the pitch, Rijkaard spat at him for the fourth time. This time the ref saw it and Rijkaard was also despatched to the changing rooms.
Völler and Rijkaard met and Völler has repeatedly declined to answer questions about what happened in the changing rooms afterwards. He says simply that the quarrel has been settled and he will not comment further. It is Völler's private business, of course. I think it not unlikely that he punched the Dutchman's lights out. No one is telling though.
Völler came out with his reputation and his dignity intact. Not everyone can emulate his superb self discipline, of course. I would like to see a few players try a bit harder though.
In the 1990 final, he was the target of constant brutal fouls. He kept his head until the inevitable happened. He was fouled in the penalty area seven minutes from time. The spot kick went in for the only goal of the game. That is how a winner handles this sort of thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 06:26 AM

Well shambles if I had my way, the team who had a player sent off would be one player short. If it got that point, the missing player would be counted as having missed his penalty.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 11:31 AM

The headbutt-on-the-pitch way of doing things meant that it was done as a public gesture - Mazeratti was identified in a way that must have been felt as humiliating, at considerable personal cost to Zidane. The Samurai approach.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: alanabit
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 12:05 PM

That may be the way he sees it. I guess none of us will ever know for sure. I would have preferred Zidane to control his temper and stay on the pitch. He would have had the last laugh had he helped France to win the World Cup. Had it been me, I may well have done the same as Zidane. I would like to think I could have handled it more like Rudi Völller though.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 12:17 PM

The headbutt-on-the-pitch way of doing things meant that it was done as a public gesture - Mazeratti was identified in a way that must have been felt as humiliating, at considerable personal cost to Zidane. The Samurai approach.

An approach not to be recommended - simply the equivalent of very publicly shooting one's self in the foot?

Materazzi was the one who deserved to be publicly humiliated. But by this approach he wasn't. His team won the World Cup and he was seen to play a proud part in this victory. And whatever the provocation - by publicly rising to it - a player of Zidane talents and reputation is only seen to have set a poor example and to have let his team down. End of story - it was not noble gesture - just a stupid one.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 02:04 PM

Has there ever been a case where a penalty shoot-out has got to ten players in a team? (McGrath)

Yes, more than once and much more than ten (48 penalties, 24 per team, seems to be the present record)
Penalty shootout trivia

If the number of players both teams have on the field are unequal at the time the shootout is to start (whether from red cards or from injury) the team with more players decides who of them will not partake in the shootout. So if one team is down to nine and the other still has eleven, the team with the eleven players has to state which two of them will not take penalties. This rule has been made to prevent that a red card or a feigned injury or a wilfully inflicted injury will not be helpful to a team. Otherwise it would be a good idea to have your worst penalty shooter break the leg of the other team's best penalty shooter one minute before the shootout and hope the referee sees the foul.

Zidane has a know problem of anger control. He has been sent off 14 times during his professional career. That may not be a world record, but it is a lot when I compare it with the German record of 8. When Zidane was taken off for another player in the last minute of the game against South Korea he completely ruined a cabin door by violent kicks. Before becoming a professisonal he had already a history of extremely violent outbreaks during games. This history has nearly ruined his career before it started. He compensates a low verbal ability in talking back to perceived insults by physical attack.

Verbal abuse should not happen and should be punished when found out but if every player would react like Zidane in such situations The game could not be played. Like a German player said in an interview: If I count the number of times my opponents claim to have slept with my mother, my wife or my sister that'll take a long time.

I don't consider racist remarks worse than other personal abuse BTW. In Zidane's case, the insult seems not to have been racist. He seems to have been called a Harki or a son of a Harki and was already incensed and furious by several big banners (of Italian supporters) stating "Zidane = Harki". That's one of his known weak points. But he should know how to deal with that by now.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 02:28 PM

Or else if every player reacted like Zidane that kind of thing would cease to be accepted practice.

How come the police didn't move in to get those banners taken down and the people holding them ejected or arrested? I imagine they would have if they'd been banners calling German players "Nazis". "Harki" - referring to the Algerians who backed the French in the war for Algerian independence - is an extremely loaded, and racist, insult in the context.

I think Mazarotti's status as hero will be pretty limited, and Italy's victory in this World Cup will be permanently dented by association with this whole episode.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: gnu
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 03:32 PM

Dented for me. I think the French were better... win or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 06:20 PM

Or else if every player reacted like Zidane that kind of thing would cease to be accepted practice.

If every player reacted like Zidane - it would be the end of football and the start of new accepted practice like Ultimate Fighting or the Roman Games. It was an approach that didn't have any effect on the accepted practice of provocation, when practiced for many years by Roy Keane - so why would Zidane's example work any better?

It seems a suggested approach rather similar to the policy followed for the same vain and forlorn hope by the various governments of Israel. With a similar lack of long-term effect and lack of support for this policy from other nations.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 08:20 PM

I think that if it was normal practice that any player verbally abusing opponents was disciplined the practice would stop. In Sunday's incident, both players should have been given a red card, and that should be the normal practice in such incidents.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Bert
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 02:18 AM

The problem with soccer nowadays is that the tactical foul has become an accepted technique.

How about changing the scoring.

3 points for a goal
2 points for a free kick
1 point for a corner

and minus 2 or 3 for a dive.

or something like that? Then a lot of current tactical moves would give way to more emphasis being placed on skill and fair play.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:08 AM

The point about the foul is good one.

The punishment for a run-of-the-mill foul is what? A free kick.

So a defender, who was the only one between the attacker and their own goalkeeper, loses his player and so decides to commit a foul (their first permitted one) to prevent them. Which has stopped the attack and has brought time for the whole of the rest of their team to come back and all get behind the ball.

The free kick is then of little advantage - compared to the position of the players when the original foul was committed. Perhaps only the defending players in front of the ball when the foul was committed should be permitted to be in front of the ball when the free kick is taken?

As it stands - this same player can repeat this foul play at least once more before they get a yellow card caution. They then can repeat this at least once more before they receive another and be finally sent off. Unless the referee is Graham Poll - who has already working on three.

No wonder the creative attacking players we all like to see, like Zidane and Rooney - who struggle to recover from brutal tackles, see their careers limited by this and who do not feel protected - get so frustrated and often retaliate.

Then there is the penalty area. Where one minor foul by an attacking player will see the ref eagerly blow his whistle and for the slightest excuse to award a free kick to the defending side. But where an attacking player needs to be practically be-headed by a defender before a penalty kick is awarded to the atacking side.

And don't get me started on the offside rule.............

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: alanabit
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:09 AM

Probably like many here, I want to see the cheating eradicated but I do not want to see goals devalued. The magic of football is that the lesser side can always win if they can conjure up a goal. Take that away and the game loses its excitement.
By the way, I hope that this
does not become a training video for the next World Cup...

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:42 AM

667

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 02:38 PM

The following from the FIFA site.

France playmaker Zinedine Zidane won the adidas Golden Ball voted for by journalists at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.
Although his team ultimately failed in their bid to lift the Trophy, Les Bleus' No.10 won the vote for the best player to grace the world stage in Germany. Behind 'Zizou' came Italy's defensive rock Fabio Cannavaro, with the Juventus defender's Azzurri team-mate Andrea Pirlo completing the podium.

After a less than impressive showing from France in the group phase, Zidane finally got into gear against Spain in the Round of 16, producing a virtually flawless performance to steer his side to a famous win and a place in the last eight.

If there is such a thing as footballing perfection, the midfield maestro surely attained it in the quarter-final showdown with Brazil. His superb passes, magical feints and all-round inspiration took France into the last four, where a solid performance and a clinical penalty helped Les Bleus dispose of Portugal.

In the Final against Italy, he opened the scoring with an audacious spot-kick. Despite his tireless prompting, however, Zidane was unable to pick up the second FIFA World Cup winner's medal of a glittering career and was sent from the field in extra time for butting Marco Materazzi in the chest.
ENDS

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 04:28 PM

When I was a kid I read a simple sci-fi story about an early attempt in space, maybe it was to go to the moon. It was 'very English'. The reason that I'm bringing it up here is that it explicitly included an incident where the young English hero, expecting to go into space the next day, is out at a public venue and a bully challenges him, and insists that he lick his boot (or, presumably, fight). The young hero licks the boot, because he knows that the least injury will disqualify him for the flight.

I remember this because it seemed very different than any American would possibly imagine, and different than what any American author would write!

So let's imagine that a prescient manager, aware of the frequency of verbal abuse, and of his most reactive (vulnerable) players instituted an anger management program purely so his team would WIN.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 12:25 PM

An alternative to Alanabit's link with point scoring (I got 1660)

Harki is a loaded term I agree but
(1) the police wouldn't have known it and
(2) it is not at all racist, at least not more than the term Quisling. A collaborator is a member of the same group (race) who collaborates with the enemy.

Well, this time, according to Zidane, it was not the word used like it was last time (1998) when he saw a red card during the world cup for stamping on Saudi Arabia's captain. (I ponder whether McGrath would call it racist when one Arab names another Arab son of a collaborator with the enemy).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Den
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 01:54 PM

Well according to Zidane's press conference Materazzi insulted Zidane's Mother and sister three times in succession. I think it was the third time that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 02:03 PM

France playmaker Zinedine Zidane won the adidas Golden Ball voted for by journalists at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.

This was chosen before the head butting of course (much to FIFA's embarrassment). I wonder if these same journalists would have still selected Zidane had the choice been made after the event?

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 06:17 PM

Sophie Ellis Bextor has been found headbutted to death in a French apartment.

Police say it was murder on Zidanes floor...

:D (tG)

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 05:38 AM

After hearing a selction of the victim's songs - the court accepted a plea of provocation and of self-defence.

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 04:44 PM

"the police wouldn't have known it" - in which case they were quite remarkably ill-informed, given all the preparation for the World Cup. And it's not exactly hard to find out even if they didn't know in the first place - just type "Harki" into Google, and see what comes up. Takes all of two seconds. The German police force does surely have computers.

"Quisling" would be a racist term for a player of Norwegian extraction playing for Germany. Similarly with "Kapo" for a Jewish player doing the same. When used by people of the same ethnic group these could indeed be political insults rather the racist - but in this case of these Italian banners the message implied would clearly have been "Zidane isn't even French, he's an Algerian - and he's a devalued sort of Algerian at that."

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: GUEST,Nic Pizzo
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 10:02 PM

What really happened to Zidane was Selfishness and no glory and greed, he went down the drain he should go home to mamma and tell her the truth , truth is taunting is in every sport - of course its not right , but, then swearing by fans and slurs remarks are?? until some head butts comes around everyone is surprised, or you kill for it, then will you be charged- in Hockey they call it normal to fight, and people applaud here in Canada, until some one gets hurt.

He who has not sinned may toss the first stone- .

As Zidane stated , I'm offended you called my mother names,poor man, MR. Zidane, you snapped and Chirac forgave you as all of France did, in a country where racial problems are real and since France masacred 500, 000 Alegerians in there occupationa way back in the 50's - unfortunately and recently France has racial problems and wants to be very cultural country, contrarey italy has lowest racial probelm in the world.


Basically the italian palyed and worked like bulls and played well, France got away with diving, they were hurt and complained, why did France make it this far, simple, refs gave them penalty shots in 2 games from palyers cheap dives.

Also now , media and no offence , the media is controlled 50% by Englsih speaking world and French and no way would they say Portugal or Italy or anyone latin should win, they are second class citizen,therefore, media campaign is to smear italian soccer , how about instead showing that Zidane isa bully and real loser after all and greedy as a leader of a team or was he, he should have not done what he did its criminal, he should have walked away, thats what real hero would have been , and win on score board.

But, media will scorn and stereotype italians as usual as England is not there or France aswinners, what esle is new, england and france after all lost and they are bitter about it, therefore Matterazzi is there lucky fellow to smear and make a manace of it-Zidane should apoligize publicaly and also Matterrazi should do the same and put it to rest.

FYI-, Zidane is not muslim or Arbic, he is Roman decent BERBER parents from a mountain region...

So, let the lip readers know that also...and the enquirer news papers and Chirac and his people who are confused and lost.-

VIVA ITALIA AND A CLASSY TEAM- Italy has fashion, food , cars , pride but also, alwasy amdmit ther sins.

ITS ALL ABOUT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE A WANNA BEE.

Ciao!

Nick from Ottawa Canada

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 03:22 AM

There does seem to be a double standard here. Players like Beckham (in the past) were publicly castigated by the whole of the nation's press for the reactions that caused them to be sent off in the World Cup.

The generally expressed view was that - whatever the provocation may have been - the foolish young Beckham should not have reacted in the way he did and it was right that he was sent off.

We now have one of the world's most experience players being sent off for the sort of violent reaction - which had he done in the street would have got him locked-up for assult - and it now somehow matters what the provocation was.......?

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 08:44 AM

Well, both players have stated that the insult was not racist. So that's it.

Similarly with "Kapo" for a Jewish player doing the same. (McGrath)

McGrath, your extremely idiosyncratic definition of "racist" is even more twisted than I thought or you simply don't know what "Kapo" means.

"Kapo" was in the concentration camps one of the prisoners aiding the Nazi screws for priviledges. The word is said to be derived from the German spelling of 'comrade police'. The inmates in the camps were Jews, Slavs, Germans, Sinti, Roma, communists, Jehova's witnesses, oppositional army officers, socialist, homosexuals, common criminals...

Therefore the Kapo's as well were all that, namely Jews, Slavs, Germans,... BTW, common German criminals made the best Kapos due to a lack of compassion. To call a Jew a Kapo is an insult, but not a racist insult unless you want to strip that term of any meaning.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 04:19 AM

How long ago it all seems......

Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 05:28 AM

That is down to concussion...........