Football...
Been getting into the football soccer lately, and I'm really quite enjoying it.
Bitterly disappointing about the Italy v Australia result - really wasn't happy about that. That said, when Italy played Germany last night, they played brilliantly. If they'd played that wayagainst Aus, I would've had no problems with them winning, but winning off a dodgy penalty, not good.
Thinking that those penalties are dodgy. Say, for example, they've got a 50% chance of scoring of one of those penalties. When a normal games score is 1-0, thats just way too much advantageto give. In AFL, a free kick like that, you get 6 points if you're lucky, with an average game score of 80-100 (or so). Big difference, especially for something so disputable. Those umpires referees1 have headsets on - they can talk to the other refs - get a second opinion on something so important.
Also not liking the bad sportsmanship, and overacting. That player that got 3 yellow cards in that game - he knew. He should've walked off by himself. And when the players act like they've broken a leg, and then are up and running 3 seconds later - its crap. Maybe playing a good game is more important to Aussies than in European football...
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1 I use umpire and referee interchangeable. Apparently this is *wrong*. However, no-one has yet been able to explain why...