Earlier today, FIFA organised a cull of the men in black who’ve been weakening the referees’ gene pool at the World Cup. They set their sights on Graham Poll and deemed him unfit to participate in the latter stages of the tournament.
The Englishman’s red card pecadillo during the South Korea-Togo match seems to have been overlooked. Poll would have been allowed to officiate in further games had it not been for his disastrous on-field performance last Thursday.
The Group F decider between Croatia and Australia was always going to be an interesting tie. With Australia’s Croatian-born players on one side and Croatia’s Australian-born players on the other, the game had an incestuous quality that called for dungarees instead of football strips. And in addition to all this, Poll made the game compelling with a series of terrible decisions.
He sent off three players in total: Croatia’s Josip Ŝimunić - the last of the trio to leave the pitch - was the pantomine villain of the piece. In the 6th minute, he wrestled Mark Viduka to the ground; Poll was the only person in the stadium who didn’t think it was a penalty.
In fairness, Poll did award a spot-kick to the Aussies in the 14th minute, after Stjepan Tomas palmed the ball in the area. However, having been tried and found guilty of the offence once, Tomas was allowed to handle the ball on two further occasions without the award of a penalty. Poll’s double jeopardy policy cost Australia all three points.
The worst was yet to come.
Despite a series of unpleasant challenges, Ŝimunić survived until the 62nd minute without being booked. He was shown his second yellow card in the last minute of normal time and a third three minutes after that! Poll forgot to send off the defender after the second booking. Quite an achievement for a man with a notebook and pen in his pocket.
In a World Cup that’s been a bit lacking in unusual incident, I’ll miss Poll, even if no-one else will.
Current vogue dictates that patriotic Dutch supporters should garb themselves in these rather fetching orange lederhosen.
Produced by Bavaria brewery as part of a World Cup promotion, a quarter of a million fans have purchased the leeuwenhose, or lion trousers, over the summer. They come in one colour only and, as is often the case with high fashion, feature oversized pockets for beer cans and a leonine tail.
Despite their popularity in the stands, the lederhosen have fallen foul of FIFA’s fashion police.
While one may have expected football’s governing body to object to any garment that isn’t a blazer, it was the prominent Bavaria branding on the trousers that provoked scorn.
The Dutch brewery is not an official World Cup sponsor; this venture into tailoring prompted FIFA to accuse Bavaria of “ambush marketing”.
So, in order to protect the interests of the company that stumped up to be associated with the event - the American brewer that makes Budweiser - FIFA took action.
Dutch fans arriving in Stuttgart for Friday’s game against Ivory Coast were forced to remove the offending trousers before being allowed into the ground. It’s been widely reported that hundreds of bemused supporters watched the game in their underwear.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Sjoerd Schreurs, a well-ventilated Dutchman. “I queued for twenty-five minutes to get in. When I reached the front, an official told me: ‘You’re not getting in like that’. I took my trousers off. I managed to chuck them over the fence to some friends. But another official spotted them and took them away.”
Until I see documentary evidence, the skeptic in me wonders if this story has been exaggerated slightly. It seems odd that photos of massed ranks of Dutchmen in their underwear haven’t made it onto the Internet.
Dare I say it…? Alleviate my suspicions; contributions from immodest Dutch supporters would be gratefully received.
“If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there.”
Brian Clough (1935-2004), on the importance of passing the ball to feet.
On Friday afternoon, Argentina embraced his philosophy and scored a wonderful goal.
Serbia and Montenegro were chasing shadows from the moment Maxi Rodgriguez bullied Savo Milosevic into conceding possession. Unable to apply the same sort of forceful pressure to the ball, the European side were inched back towards their own goal.
The approach was considered; the final attack brutally quick. Saviola played in Esteban Cambiasso as he was bearing down on the box. Cambiasso found Crespo before continuing on his run. Twelve yards from goal, the Inter Milan midfielder gratefully accepted Crespo’s backheeled return with a high finish into the net.
Twenty-four passes; nine players involved; movement on and off the ball; a maximum of three touches from each man - is this the best team goal ever scored at a World Cup?
Carlos Alberto’s strike against Italy in the 1970 final has always been the favourite of pundits in search of perfection.
The Brazilian’s goal is noticeably different to Cambiasso’s: opponents are taken out of the game by self-assured dribbling, whereas Argentina let the ball do the work.
Perhaps it’s also worth noting that Brazil were two goals to the good and minutes from victory when Alberto scored. Argentina’s 1-0 lead against Serbia meant the tie was very much alive as a contest. And that’s why I’ll plump for Cambiasso’s goal as my favourite.
You can watch myopic referees getting it wrong in any top-flight league, on any given Saturday. But if you want to see a colour blind referee, you have to wait for a big event like the World Cup.
The man in black for yesterday’s game between South Korea and Togo was Graham Poll. In the 53rd minute, with Togo leading 1-0, Korea’s Ji-Sung Park knocked the ball into the space between two Togolese defenders when everyone else was expecting a pass. As Park hared after his clever touch, he was brought down on the edge of the area by Jean-Paul Abalo.
The crowd could smell blood when the English referee whistled. Abalo had already been booked in the first half and he was promptly dismissed. But Poll - clearly a man on form - seemed to be under the impression that two reds make a yellow.
Current vogue dictates that patriotic Dutch supporters should garb themselves in these rather fetching orange lederhosen.