OT: Euro04

oleg · #1 June 25th, 2004, 01:28 AM

Yeah, it was pathetic.

Once ahead, pull midfield players back into penalty box. Kick longballs to isolated forwards and hope for the best. Does not work against quality teams like France or Portugal

I actually think referee was right - Terry held goalie down with his hand over shoulder. You can not do that inside the box. Even if you honestly go for the ball, goalie has a right of way.

primitive · #2 June 25th, 2004, 09:49 AM

Good call by the ref. Most refs would have missed the stiff arm by Terry.

gravey101 · #3 June 26th, 2004, 01:23 AM

I will admit to being biased here but I would argue that the photo does not sum up the entire situation. The keeper was out of position after the initial header hit the bar. Terry stood his ground next to Campbell and the keeper vainly tried to get past him, which is what you are seeing here. No stiff arm. If you watch the TV footage, which I am sure you have, you can see that there is no contact worthy of the name between Terry and keeper. Terry is entitled to hold his position in the box once he has got there in a legal manner which he did. In any case, the ref was on the other side of the players and a good ways down the field. He didn't see it at all. He saw a scamble in the box and gave a foul in the heat of the moment. The linesman had a better view and gave the goal. I think it was a shocking decision, but such is football. As I have said already, Portugal were the better side and sometimes luck favours the best.

[ June 25, 2004, 12:24: Message edited by: gravey101 ]

gravey101 · #4 June 25th, 2004, 02:43 PM

I think this pictures sums the situation up nicely :-)

primitive · #5 June 25th, 2004, 02:59 PM

LOL Gravey. That�s funny

But for the record., here is another picture of the incident (not done in photoshop

)

This one is taken about 2 tenths of a second before the previous one and clearly shows:
- The stiff arm.
- The goalie in position to reach the ball (or at least challenge for it) if he was allowed to jump straight up.
- The ref just outside the box and with a clear view of the arm/incident.

gravey101 · #6 June 25th, 2004, 03:07 PM

I see the pictures, and understand your point, but they don't show what the live footage shows IMO. I don't think the goalie has a chance of challenging Campbell. He was out of position and Terry was in the way. We will probably never agree on this one but there you go. With Rooney out for the tournament it probably saved England the pain of losing to Sweden (or the Dutch) in the semi-final... we really weren't good enough, espcially in central midfield where we just kept giving up posession time after time. Anyways, hope springs eternal, and on to the 2006 WC.

[ June 25, 2004, 14:09: Message edited by: gravey101 ]

PeterD · #7 June 25th, 2004, 08:13 PM

Last post was dead right. We had no midfield
worth talking about. The defence did ok but with
no connection to the forwards we were never going
to win.

Beckham was awful, you simply cannot miss 2
penalties at this level and win. He may take a
good freekick but he's not a good captain.

Football is a tough game and you have to have a
tough captain, one you can hear all over the
pitch. We've had good captains but he isn't one
of them.

Sure we played well against Croatia and beat the
Swiss but we lack a creative spark to manufacture
goals from nothing.