Go Go the Green and Gold
June 27, 2006 – 6:50 pmLast night, the exciting world cup campaign for the aussie socceroos tragically ended. I think the world has come to respect the Australian team, and as the underdogs we have always had a lot of support. It just sucks that every single game that we played was dictated by decisions of the referree. FIFA - whats the deal?
For the last two weeks, Australia has been a flair of green and gold euphoria, millions of people watching football games at 3am at the local pub or on the couch.
Soccerroos - Australians are proud of you!
8 Responses to “Go Go the Green and Gold”
I think not only Australians are proud, the soccerroos team found many supporters in other coutnries too. Many thanks to them for playing a great world cup from Germany.
By Jean-Marc Autexier on Jun 27, 2006
I’m italian and I can say Socceroos has really shown some high quality football in this championship (expecially against Brazil). It’s really a pity the game has been decided by a referee’s gift, rather than by some of the many shoots from either side. Such a great game should never end this way.
Anyway, well done Australia! Surely hope to see you again in 2010.
By HackSaw on Jun 27, 2006
I’m italian too. Don’t feel to frustrated about referees faults, that’s first Australia world cup, we (and almost all the other teams) had already more then one match lost because referee faults.
By David on Jun 27, 2006
I’m not upset that we lost - rather that we couldn’t get an honourable defeat that we deserved
By Seb on Jun 27, 2006
“Soccerroos - Australians are proud of you!”
As well many people around the world. Australia, Ukrania and some others third-level teams did or are doing a great job!
By caio1982 on Jun 27, 2006
Referee is the highest authority on the field. His decisions are not to be questioned, even when he’s wrong (as happens now quite often with technology and high-res TV, showing that this or that player was or was not in offside, etc.)
The other consequence of this is that a player must not question the referee’s decision. If he does, he may get a yellow card, like it happened during the Sweden x Germany game.
That said, FIFA is studying introducing some technological help to referees, such as having an auxiliary review TV feed. Rugby has this already. This faces a lot of controversy, since many fans believe it would take the fun away from the game.
By Thiago Macieira on Jun 28, 2006
FIFA’s steadfast refusal to introduce even the most basic technology (i.e. replay’s for things like penalty decisions) is costing the game it’s honour and costing teams a fair chance to play hard, attacking football (and defence) - not illegal football, just hard, like the game the Aussies play.
They should, as a matter of urgency, bring in replay’s for all penalty decisions. The amount of time that passes between the Ref giving a penalty and it being taken is always a few minutes and a “TV Ref” would only need 30 to 60 seconds to confirm or deny the decision. It would not impact the game in a time sense and, further, proper penalties (red cards) could be given to those taking dives, etc.
Yes, I’m Australian. Yes, I’m annoyed with the obviously bad decisions and obviously missed decisions (two hand balls and we should have had two penalties in two games). I played soccer for a decade or so in my youth and I always played fair and respected the ref.. but when, like these days, it’s too easy to grab penalties and free kicks from outright faking or making simple things look much worse, the game is on a downhill slide.
Come on FIFA. Make the simple choices now and stop stalling. One man and two linesmen can’t make consistently good decisions from one angle and one chance to see it at full speed.
Remember the Aus vs Japan game when the Ref came out after the game and apologised for making the error? I bet we don’t get the same thing for the Italy game - FIFA’s lawyers will have seen to that.
By Josh on Jun 28, 2006
I disagree - football is all about the passion and the emotion which is brought about by both good and bad decisions.
I don’t think a video ref would do the game any good
By Seb on Jun 28, 2006