louis saha was rushed in for a late medical to complete his move from everton to spurs.
As the dust settles after another underwhelming transfer deadline day, I’m sure all of you readers are fed up with transfer news and gossip. I am, at least. In an effort to stray away from that topic of conversation, and to give your brain a break from digesting it all, I’ve put together this TWOL that contains absolutely zero transfer news. Except for the mocking picture above. So if you’ve come here look to catch up on yesterday’s “madness”, you might want to navigate elsewhere.
Modern technology, and the way it’s seeped into our everyday lives, sometimes blows my mind. That I can sit in my living room in Cincinnati and watch a live Premiership match – taking place nearly 4,000 miles from said living room — unfold on a picture so clear I can literally see blades of grass kick up on a slide tackle, or beads of sweat explode off a player’s head while heading the ball, is something truly to marvel.
premier league cameras are like the eye of sauron: all-seeing and ever-watching.
While these HD telecasts are definitely luxuries, they’ve definitely enhanced the match day experience for foreign fans of the European leagues. Most of these fans will never be able to afford a ticket to their favorite club’s match, let alone the costs to travel there and back. Being one of those lucky enough to have watched a game in person, I can say with great certainty that watching on your high def television isn’t a bad substitute. Hell, you could even say it has its advantages: it’s cheaper, you can watch a wider selection of matches, and there’s the lowered possibility of getting cornered by hooligans after a match… I mean, I don’t know what your friends are like.
But what really blows my mind about the dawn of the HD-era in worldwide football broadcasting is how the players could possibly forget that their every move is being broadcast to, and watched by, the entire world.
Premier League rules dictate that there are a minimum of 24 cameras in each team’s stadium in order to provide every viewing angle possible during a match. The players appear to be aware of at least some of them, judging by how often they tend to run in and kiss the camera during moments of celebration. But in times of frustration or menacing evil, some players just seem to think that nobody is watching them. Yet the video cameras are still there, ever watching. And if the TV guys somehow miss it, there’s an army of journolists and fans with camera phones there to serve as backups. Virtually nothing can go unnoticed.
Do the players think they’re too clever? Well, we all know that most footballers aren’t known for their minds, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think of themselves as clever. Just ask Joey Barton.
Perhaps they think their actions will be too quick to be noticed, or could at least be interpreted as unintentional. In a day of age where slow motion replays of player two-second player reaction being stretched into 10-second “emotion shots”, they shouldn’t be naive enough to think that their quick actions can’t be dissected by the millisecond.
Yet, whether through ignorance or arrogance, players persist to make these idiotic decisions. And for one reason or another, they always seem to come in bunches of three.
First up, Real Madrid’s Pepe gave us this boneheaded move during their midweek Copa del Rey first-leg tie with hated rivals Barcelona:
Pepe, we all saw you alter your stride and look down to make sure that you stepped on Lionel Messi’s hand. To brush it off as accidental in your “apology” is an insult to anyone with eyes. Each additional angle you bring into play makes your actions provides even more evidence against your cause. Considering the Spanish FA should still have you on a multi-year ban for this ludicrous attack from a few years ago, you’re lucky to have had the opportunity to be this stupid again. This kind of act is an embarrassment, and is one of the reasons that make me ashamed to publicly admit that I’m a supporter of Real Madrid these days.
Just why Pepe would choose to stamp down on something that has very little affect on Messi’s spectacular playing ability — like a foot, perhaps? — is further proof that players aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.
Next in line for thinking that nobody will catch his dirty tricks is Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott:
Perhaps not as obvious as Pepe’s stamp above upon first glance, Lescott’s elbow to Kaboul’s face also appears increasingly intentional the more angles you watch it from. Just why Lescott felt it necessary to raise his elbow to Kaboul is beyond me, since he’d already won the ball and the play was moving on.
Already on a yellow, the former Everton man was extremely luck to have not been sent off for the action. Yet his actions — just inches outside the City penalty area no less — somehow went unnoticed by Howard Webb.
Amazingly for Webb, a referee I normally rate as the best in England, he somehow missed another intentional assault on a Tottenham player just under ten minutes later. Could it be that Howard has traded in his United Red-tinted spectacles for a new pair with a City Blue hue? Unlikely. As a Spurs fan, it’s a conspiracy theory I’d be willing to hear, especially after watching this happen:
I mean nobody — especially someone already on a yellow — while in the process of falling, will jam their heel backward away from the direction they’re moving. If anything, Balotelli’s momentum suggests that his right heel would foot would have moved away from Parker’s face. And just like Pepe’s stamp on Messi’s hand, you can see the controversial Italian adjust his stride so he could complete his heinous act. Adding insult to injury, a further ten minutes on from this incident and Balotelli was being taken down for and converting a match-winning penalty. Total bullshit, says this Spurs fan.
Apparently, Super Mario is incapable of learning from his past mistakes. For a man who’s been caught on camera trapped in a training bib, using an iPad on the substitute’s bench of an international match, and who was well aware that he’d draw massive amounts of attention for claiming “WHY ALWAYS ME?“, you’d think he would have developed a heightened awareness that the cameras were always trained on him. Nope.
Whether these ignorant, unprofessional and intentional acts to harm players are punished remains to be seen. But if nothing else, thanks to the onset of modern television technology, they’re not going unnoticed anymore. And if the court of public opinion has taught us anything before, it’s that it won’t be long until the authorities stand up and take notice, too.
By that time, if they players have any brains to them, they’ll have learned that big brother is watching, and they ought to be on their best behavior.
if arshavin's fashion sense catches on, we all have reason to be pessimistic.
It may just be me, but I feel like my recent posts have taken a rather pessimistic view of the beautiful game. A quick look at my front page shows a total of seven non-round-up posts, and four of them are nothing but me bitching about some current aspect of the game. I must think soccer is going to hell then, right?
Well, sort of… but I could also just be moody and hypersensitive to issues that I think are currently plaguing the game. If it makes you feel better, you can call me a pessimist. I won’t take it the wrong way.
However, if you’re not yet concerned about the state of affairs in professional football, just take a gander at a few of the links below. We’ll make you into pessimist in no time.
crouch visited and got his haircut by aaron biber. when biber's barbershop was trashed during the riots, the looters shockingly left the autographed crouch photo he's holding.
Welcome back, distinguished readers, and thanks for reading my latest article on wrong side of the pond. I am attempting to keep today’s posting very formal, proper, and short as this blog needs to get into in-season form for the start of this European campaign. So with that in mind, let’s skip the silliness today and get on to the sub-ten-word links below.
is it safe to leave children with prince based on what we know about him now?
There are definitely weeks where I could spit out like three ten words or less, and this is one of them. I have to admit that I love all of these little odds and ends type stories that permeate out of the game. And with titles being won and fates being sealed this week, there are tons of little bits to highlight churning out the media mill at the moment.
Also, not a single one of these links is a transfer rumor. Odd for this time of year, don’t you think?
Sometimes you have to wonder if humanity would ever get anything done if it weren’t for disasters.
you knew i had to complain about this at some point, right?
It took a massive hurricane for New Orleans –a city stupidly built below sea level on a river delta– to actually spend any money to build adequate levies to prevent rising river/lake/sea water from ravaging the city. Japan needed to have a nuclear meltdown at one of their power plants before they thought, “Hey, maybe it would be a good idea to build impenetrable sea walls around our nuclear power plants!” Apparently, reacting after a disaster is the only way to save face.
And just as in the real world, the powers that be in soccer need to have their lack of action blow up in their faces before they decide to go about making needed changes in the game.
Refereeing has been the bane of FIFA’s existence the last year and a half. Bad decision after horrible decision, missed call after botched call, affected game after ruined game, the overall quality of supposed “top-level” referees in the game seems to have taken a massive dip. Some high-profile recent examples include:
Barcelona escaping any punishment for all of their diving during the Champions League clásicos.
Tottenham falling to Chelsea on an offsides goal and a goal that never crossed the line (see above).
Now to be fair, and I have been pretty harsh to the lot on this blog, all of the blame can’t be shouldered by the referees. Yes, some of the poor performances are definitely their fault: not being in the right place on the pitch to see the action, being inconsistent in the calls being made, or just plain making the wrong call. But a lot of this can also be blamed on the dramatic increase in the speed of the modern game. It can be awfully difficult to make a judgement call on a possible infraction that took place in a matter of milliseconds.
Regardless of the reason for the poor quality of refereeing, it’s clear these blind mice need some sort of help. And luckily for us, these events over the last year have finally forced FIFA’s dirty little hand.
Last week, FIFA announced a 2012 deadline for finding a suitable solution to the much maligned goal line technology debate. A long over due pledge, goal line technology is likely the easiest to solve of the issues plaguing the organization (At least they’re finally caving on one issue). And just in time, as it’s an issue that has recently severely impacted the results of some very major games.
So in light of such an important announcement, I thought it might be worthwhile to take some time to look at some of the contenders proposed to solve FIFA’s big problem.
a brilliant concept, but can CTRUS actually meet the standards for an actual ball?
CTRUS by agent
Purely conceptual (I think), we’re still a long way from seeing CTRUS as a viable solution for FIFA… and for multiple reasons.
A functioning model has yet to appear.
It requires no inflation, meaning by definition, it’s not a ball FIFA would approve. Massive rule changes would need to be instituted just for this mechanical ball to earn the coveted official “FIFA Approved” logo.
It’s way too cool for an archaic, old-fashioned organization to adopt.
What’s awesome about the CTRUS concept is that it’s not just the referee who will receive notice of a potential goal: everyone will. Thanks to the ball’s on-board GPS, RFID and multiple POV cameras, the ball will be able to determine its location and signal a goal or ball out-of-touch by changing its colors with LED lighting.
All bad ass ideas, but all assuming that Agen can actually get the thing to work.
"wait, i can't see around this post."
The Five-Man System
Everyone should be fairly familiar with FIFA’s only somewhat-sanctioned form of goal line technology, where an extra official is placed just behind and to the left of each goal mouth. Let’s first diligently declare that this is not a “technology” per se… unless the extra officials are some form cyborgs. And to be honest, this solution is really just four extra eyes to watch a ball from a closer angle.
Problem is, I don’t think that these guys provide that much additional value.
Since these guys are already qualified as professional referees, they’re allowed not only rule on goals, but also on other infringements in the penalty area. Sadly, I can’t think of one occasion where I’ve seen them call anything. Secondly, there’s still plenty of room for human error. In fact, there’s twice as much room for human error. So there’s really no possible way that this “technology” could even meet FIFA’s own 100% accuracy standards.
Goalminder
A relative unknown, at least as far as the media are concerned, Goalminder is a solution that involves placing fiber-optic, high-speed cameras in the posts and crossbar of each goal. Very reminiscent of the NHL’s downward facing camera used to verify goals, check out the video below for a horribly drawn out (and ADD distracted) demonstration:
One major problem with this solution is the time it would take to make a decision with cameras. Someone would need to watch the video, possibly frame by frame, and every angle could potentially be obscured by an errant arm, leg, foot or body. Are the referees supposed to pause the game as they wait for or make a decision? Who watches the video replays? In reality, there are more questions that actual answers with regards to Goalminder.
the infamous sputnik ball makes a return to WSOTP.
Cairos
remember the Sputnik ball that I had stupidly propped up on my site a few weeks back that purported to be the official 2014 World Cup ball? Well, as I said in the story, it’s not the next ball but rather an old prototype utilizing the “Cairos GLT” technology in adidas’ Teamgeist II.
A joint venture between adidas and Cairos Technologies, this system utilizes a series of in-ball sensors that, when the ball completely crosses the goal line, would immediately notify the referee that a goal should be awarded. It requires the posts and bars to transmit electromagnetic fields that would be measured by the ball’s microchips to determine its location on the pitch.
An earlier version of this system was demoed at the 2005 U-17 World Cup, but apparently wasn’t able to make the grade. With a bad taste already in FIFA’s mouth, adidas and co hopefully did their homework a bit better this time around in order to convince anyone that it’s a viable option.
Vegum/Tag-Heuer’s Goal Line Technology (GLT)
Cleverly named product, isn’t it? The famous watchmaker’s system was first developed ahead of 2010 Olympic Hockey tournament, and is currently solely marketed for use in hockey. It utilizes a centrally located microchip within the ball to gauge its position with regards to an electromagnetic field emanating from the posts, crossbar, and goal line.
hawk-eye's software uses multiple views to verify a goal. extra sets of intelligent eyes are never a bad thing.
Hawk-Eye
Already the master of millimeter-precise solutions for tennis, cricket, and even snooker, Hawk-Eye is the solution FIFA should already be using.
Hawk-Eye is a computer program that utilizes a set of 6 high-speed cameras at both ends of the stadium, each providing a different angle on the goal line action. The computerized brain then analyzes all of the video feeds to determine the trajectory, speed, and exact location at any given time. Even in situations when the ball is obstructed from every view, the system’s historical database can make accurate assumptions about the ball’s location, based on where it isn’t and historical data. So for those not able to follow, the system can “see” the ball even when it can’t.
The company and Premier League claimed in 1997 that they had the technology ready for in-game implementation, but FIFA was too busy turning a blind eye to the situation at that point. It’s proven to be invaluable in the sports that currently use the technology, which should lend plenty of credence to using it in goal-line decisions.
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Others companies (such as Swiss watch-maker Longines) are reportedly submitting proposals, but they’ve kept their brainchildren hidden away in the depths of the internet where I can’t find them.
It is also important to remember that this isn’t the first time FIFA have attempted to tackle the goal line technology debate. Back in February, FIFA put ten solutions through the wringer only to have them all fail to meet the stringent accuracy standards demanded by the ruling regime governing body. And that begs to question whether or not any of the possible solutions listed above will even be able to make the grade.
For everyone’s sake, let’s hope it does. FIFA and UEFA have spent too much time with their heads in the sand, and their precious game is suffering tremendously for it.
perhaps faurlin (left) and QPR won't be enjoying the spoils of the premier league next season
the steam is running out of my team’s, and it’s seriously impacting my interest in the rest of the their respective seasons. real madrid are (deservingly) eliminated from europe. tottenham are (predictably) pissing away their season of “living the dream.” it’s hard as a fan of both clubs to watch on with both having very little left to play for besides pride (although if tottenham lose out on the europa league to liverpool, i might suffer an aneurysm).
forgive me my tears, for i am only human.
so as we prepare for a weekend full of title and relegation-deciding matches, here’s a quick round-up of some interesting reads from around the world of football.
I have to admit that I’m a little depressed this week. I cancelled a vacation day that I had planned for watching the second leg of the Tottenham-Real Madrid Champions League quarter-final, as it makes no sense to waste such a precious commodity on a tie that will surely see my favorite team exit. I’m not sure whether I’m more sad about Spurs’ eventual exit, or by the fact that I’m giving up a vacation day. Oh well, another 5-day workweek for me.
is this the best MLS side we’ve ever seen?
While I’m busy bumbling my way through another rainy monday in Ohio, I thought I could provide you with som interesting links from around the tubes and my tangent thoughts associated with them.
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Actually, you are quite divisible – fromaleftwing.blogspot.com
Retro jersey design is all the rage these days and I, for one, am a big fan of the movement. Retro inspiration tends to be me minimalist in nature, something I highly value in design both inside and outside of football fashions. with Umbro and parent company Nike leading the retro charge, we’ve recently been given some excellent kits that hearken iconic, cultural symbols of days past.
However, even hip and popular designing trends can produce stinkers. And the new USWNT kits are definitely a big stinker. In a similar move to France’s badass aways inspired by traditional french naval uniforms, the new American women’s kit pays homage to nursing uniforms from the World War II era. Is this jersey supposed to trick Sepp Blatter into thinking that the women’s game is finally taking his advice? Because if so, they’re doing an awful job at sexing the game up with low-cut shirts that still cover them up. Nike blew a massive opportunity to create a super cool and sexy nurse kit.
Why Arsene Wenger’s all-powerful status may come to an end – goal.com
Another week goes by, another opportunity for Wenger to make excuses. There have been growing concerns over the last season or two whether the Gunners are really benefiting from being solely governed by King Arsene, and whether the professor is finally losing the course. However, Arsenal are likely going to finish their sixth consecutive season without a trophy. That’s plenty of time for the fans and media to finally start questioning his methods.
It’s an interesting idea to hypothesize that, with American Stan kroenke set to launch a takeover of Arsenal, this could spell the demise of the Frenchman’s complete control of the club’s sporting initiatives. Purging Arsene of some of or part of the responsibilities that he currently governs with an iron fist may allow him to focus fully on what should be his main priority: the results on the pitch.
Player answers phone during match, takes out opponent – dirty tackle @ yahoo.com
Seriously, who answers their freaking phone during a match? As video below shows, apparently guys who play German amateur football do. Unless it’s a family emergency, your house is burning down, or a call up to the national team, there is no acceptable reason to take a call while playing. And since this dude was willing to interrupt his call to go crack some skull, I’m guessing that it wasn’t such an important call to begin with.
Now dick tackle aside, how about the form on that tackle?! Seemingly out of the action while chatting away like your average teenage girl on their T-Mobile Sidekick, Matthias Hilbrands swoops in and blows up the opposing player on the break for Fortuna Veenhusen. I’d also like to note that it was a clean tackle. so the next question becomes, “Why the yellow?”
RSL reserves topple Revolution – soccerbyives.com
I don’t know that we’ve ever seen an MLS side that’s as good as the current incarnation of Real Salt Lake. Despite the club having to defend its surprise MLS Cup championship last season, the Utahns (ick… wouldn’t Utovian sound cooler?) are steadily becoming a force to be reckoned with in the US. Having become the first MLS club ever to advance to the final of the CONCACAF Champions League last week, manager Jason Kreis decided to give a majority of his first team a much-needed rest against New England. And that was plenty good enough for the rough affair.
The real test, however, still awaits RSL. American sides have a horrendous 1 for 12 record against Mexican sides over two legs, and Salt Lake will be facing one in the final (Monterrey). There is some hope though, as one of only two MLS sides to ever beat a Mexican team is… drumroll please… Real Salt Lake! And if they are able to prevail in the continental championship, I may actually consider forgiving them for the stupid, stupid name.
Respect? I remember that one time at Old Trafford… – guardian.co.uk
According to Premier League chief dick Scudamore, next season everyone will respect the referees or else. Having grown tired of the near-constant bad behavior of the players in his league, he intends to crack down on the worst offence being committed by the ruffians — disrespecting the referees. To quote a tweet by the poorly punctuated Robbie Savage:
To much inconsistency in decisions from authorities elbowing wrong , air rifles wrong , swearing wrong, one only gets punished !
Scudamore’s efforts, while understandable, are way off base. First, there are bigger issues to tackle in his league than swearing at, surrounding, or post-match calling out of a referee. Secondly, he is completely glossing over the bigger problem all together with respecting referees: his officials have been making a lot of mistakes lately.
How is a player/manager supposed to accept the criticisms of the fans and media, yet not be allowed to vocalize his criticisms of a referee who’s made an obvious mistake that could have had a huge impact on the outcome of the match? If you ask me, it doesn’t seem fair that referees are exempt from public thrashing that players receive when they don’t meet the grade.
No one likes referees, certain ones in particular. They always try to ruin your fun on the field, they favor the other team, and call you for fouls you definitely didn’t commit. Even referees don’t like themselves, or so I’ve been told. Thinking about why anyone choses it as their line of work melts my brain, as I can’t see any logic in doing so.
van persie had reason to scream, along with many others, over the past few weeks.
Unfortunately, no matter how much we hate them, referees are a necessary evil. Let’s be honest, we players can’t be trusted to police ourselves. If for some reason we were left to do so, we would have infinitely more bruisers like Nigel de Jong, and virtually zero finesse players like Messi. Without them, Rino Gattuso likely would have killed someone by now.
And while I’m on this honesty kick, I’ll even admit that I think that officials actually have a pretty hard job. You’re not only expected to be the final judge on all 22 players on the field, how they’re behaving, and where the ball is in relation to the pitch, but do all of that at the same time. The modern game has become so lightening quick that decisions on offsides or late tackles occur in a span of milliseconds. That’s just a sliver of time to make a snap judgment on whether to blow, or not to blow (get your mind of the gutter) one’s whistle for a possible offence. It’s miraculous just how often they do get the calls right.
But lately, the percentage of correct calls (or no calls) seems to have taken a sharp dip. A small sampling from just the last two weeks includes:
In the world’s top competition, one could expect to see the best officiating, right? Wrong.
The most heated and controversial call recently was van Persie’s second yellow in Arsenal’s second-leg Champions League round of 16, awarded by Massimo Busacca for “time wasting.” This despite the fact that he had the ball for less than one second before shooting it wide by just a few feet, unable hear the whistle because there are 98,000 screaming fans. Also, be sure to keep in mind that this would all be moot if Rickety Robin had been properly sent off for his earlier missed stamp on Messi. Somehow, this went unpunished as well.
Handling a particularly rough World Cup final to generally positive reviews (except for maybe this), the normally decent Howard Webb didn’t like the way that Shakhtar’s Darijo Srna reacted to having Daniele de Rossi’s elbow parked in his face, so he carded him.
clattenburg thinking really hard if he saw wazza misbehaving.
Poor officiating has been rampant in the Premier League recently, too:
Martin Atkinson sent off Vidić for a second yellow, despite allowing Chelsea’s David Luiz to get away with an equally violent second yellow card offence minutes earlier. At least Fergie didn’t mind.
Anthony Taylor and his linesmen twice baffled the Arsenal faithful against Sunderland. First they ignored a blatant penalty when Arshavin was two-arm shoved by Titus Bramble. Then they disallowed Arshavin’s 87th minute winner because he was not offsides.
Superdouche Mark Clattenburg has continued on his moron march through the 2010/2011 Premier League campaign, with two major gaffes in the last two weeks. He somehow missed Wayne Rooney pile driving James McCarthy’s face, despite standing just a few yards away. Then he awarded a dubious penalty to Fulham. Why none of us expect this from Clattenburg yet is beyond me.
Peter Walton was charged with overseeing the midweek clash between Birmingham City and Everton, and forgot his cards in the dressing room. This one would have flown under the radar had it not been for Jordan Mutch’s 40th minute yellow.
Look, I know these guys aren’t perfect. They’re going to miss things from time to time; it’s human nature. Poor decisions will be made and they are rarely reversed, no matter how horrid the mistake. With that in mind, you can understand when I say that my complaint isn’t really with the referees, despite their obvious involvement.
As it turns out, my complaint (once again) is with FIFA.
First and foremost, FIFA need to end the pointless policy of not allowing anyone complain about the officiating. I get why they don’t want to be advertising bitching and moaning about the refs, a part of their larger “respect” initiative, as we can’t have kids calling their referee a chav every time they don’t agree with a call. But this rule needs to be done away with for the pure reason of fairness.
After each game, leagues require that their manager and players meet with the press to answer questions about the match. “Why did you choose to do this?”, “What are your thoughts about this decision?”, and “Why did your team lose?” These types of questions not only force the players/managers to explain their actions, but also are meant to bait the players into complaining about the referee’s decisions. Bite your tongues boys, as you can expect a charge from your FA if you voice to strong of an opinion.
So what they’re doing is placing them to come and give their thoughts to the press, but still strictly forbid them from speaking their minds when they answer the controversial questions with which they are being forced to field? That’s not fair.
If the players and managers are being forced to explain themselves, why aren’t the referee’s forced to do the same thing? Make Busacca stand in front of all the mics and cameras and explain how he expected van Persie to hear a whistle over the roar of one tenth of a million people. Even more satisfying, we could drag Clattenburg into an interrogation room and make him answer for all of his bad crimes calls over the last decade.
Secondly, FIFA need to quit dicking around and start providing the refs with some help, in particular with goal line decisions. While the addition of head sets to help the referee communicate with their linesmen is a step in the right direction, utilizing end line officials in a very small percentage of the competitions is not appropriately addressing the issue. Another set of eyes can’t eliminate the human error, it just lowers it.
my tv and a dvr remote are all the technology fifa would need to give refs a hand in making the right call.
The technology already exists to give quick and accurate review of close goal line calls. It’s called HD TV and a DVR, and I use it every day in my living room. This space age technology allows me to rewind the video, slow it down, look at it frame by frame. You wouldn’t even have to stop play to verify calls, as a one of your 4th official could review and relay to the man in the middle, who can then blow his whistle if he’s been told that a goal should have been awarded. Of course FIFA thinks this technology only exists as an idea in the future, and unfortunately Sepp burned his bridge with Marty McFly years ago.
With such important issues to consider and refereeing dominating the headlines, it’s a good thing FIFA’s rules committee convened a few weeks ago. Or so you would think.
While the committee did agree that more options need to be considered with regards to technology, the only rule that they actually made during their meeting was to end the legality of snoods. Yes, FIFA would rather make sure players necks aren’t too warm than tackle more important issues like consistency or goal decisions. “Technology will ruin the game!”
Like I wrote earlier, we need referees. The game we all know and love would be difficult to call a “beautiful” without them. We know too that they are humans, and they’re bound to make some mistakes here and there. But FIFA are slacking on both holding them accountable for their decisions and in helping them to make them consistently and accurately.
Simply put: it’s time for the governing body to wake up, catch up with the times, and do it in a hurrry.
Before I get into this, I just want to say that I know Tottenham were probably going to lose the game against Manchester United. Regardless of who you are, if you’re down a goal, away at Old Trafford, and in the 83rd minute, you’re probably not going to win. The incident I’m about to talk about probably had little bearing on the outcome of the game. However…
i hate your face.
I’ve tried to cool down, and it’s not like I haven’t given it time. Even this week’s marvelous result against Inter hasn’t dulled my rage. I’m furious. I hate right now. I was so angry the Sunday after the match that I half-wanted to beat up a neighborhood kid and steal his halloween candy. Especially the one kid wearing this.
Yes, I’m talking about the completely idiotic and absolutely horrible no call by the man currently at the top of my ill-will list, Mark Clattenburg. This A-hole extraordinaire makes my blood boil for so, so many reasons. Today, I’ll give you five of them.
1. He screwed us. Twice. Yes, I know that Gomes should have played until he heard a whistle. But when a guy doesn’t get the penalty he desires called for him and then grabs the ball with his hand, that normally get’s called and a card. The linesman was no better than Clattenburg, apparently so dense that he had to think about it first. But at least he waved his flag around when he came to the realization that, “Oh yes, I suppose that Portuguese fellow that looks like Michael jackson did just play the ball with his hand there.”
Though to everyone in the world’s dismay, Clattenburg didn’t think he needed to call the infraction. Why you ask? Oh because he was giving Spurs “advantage”. In their own box. The keeper with the ball. Versus a forward. How does that make and freaking sense!?!?!
2. That smug look on his face. You know what one I’m talking about. That one he always makes when players start yelling at him. It’s like he’s saying to himself, “These imbeciles. I wish I could get just one match in without having to deal with a bunch of idiots.” He obviously thinks he’s pretty hot stuff.
A good ref will hardly be noticed on the field. Clattenburg’s smug expression tells me he wants to change that. Mark wants everyone to know he’s on the pitch. Only, problem is, he isn’t that good of a ref.
And if you still don’t know which face i’m talking about, it’s the one above.
3. Controversy follows him wherever he goes.
It’s not just the Lillywhites that Clattenburg has shafted. In fact, he has a track record of being a moron. If you need any further proof for his inability to meet the high standards demanded of an elite referree, there’s even an internet petition that’s been around since october — of 2007 mind you — that aims to have Clattenburg banned from reffing matches. And yes, I signed it, and you should too.
4. His hair.
What does he think he’s doing with that haircut? That’s not a haircut for a 35 year old. Is he trying to woo the minuscule audience of women in the world who are into refs? There can’t be that many… if any, right?
Tell me he doesn’t look like a guy that would go out to bars and try to pick up girls from the wannabe WAG club with lines like, “Hey baby, did you wach the Blackburn game today? Yeah? Well, I was in charge of it.” Either way, I’m guessing no matter what pick up line he ends up choosing and regardless of how aggressive he styles his hair, the ladies will still see notice that he’s actually balding.
5. Ge’s a referee.
Do you know anyone that says, “I just love lawyers!!!” How about the highway patrol? No, you don’t… though they are both necessary evils in our world. And that same sort of rule applies to referees. It’s disgusting how they’re always trying to ruin games by calling you for fouls that may or may not have happened. “No you can’t do that,” they’re always saying after blowing their whistles and looking at you disapprovingly. And Mark Clattenburg is the worst of the lot because he’s a moron with a stupid face and a stupid haircut.
