WCQ - Interzone Playoffs [R]

[River City]

Interesting....

I am a fan of Turkey though at the national level - they did pretty well for themselves at Euro 2000 and WC 2002. As for the cheating, maybe they took lessons from Rivaldo

[Rivaldo]

I'm a little disappointed that Uruguay didn't make it. I thought they played the more attractive game. With their top players missing at the end (Forlan, Recoba & Montero) they couldn't show their best. As for what they did in the last World Cup, their their nil-nil draw with France was one of the games of the tournament.

Full credit to Australia. Their fans were great, they have a beautiful stadium, and Schwarzer was super on the penalties. Now that they've made it from the OFC will they have any regrets about joining Asia?

If Bahrain is any indication of what they're up against, they don't have much to worry about.

[amacpher]

Anyone see the incident that happened at the end of that game between Switzerland and the filthy Turks? For those that didn't, the second the final whistle blew the Swiss team bolted for the tunnel. I guess they had enough of getting spat on by the Turkish players and objects thrown at them by the fans. Anyway, then for some reason the Turkish players felt they needed to chase after the Swiss team. Guess they were mad not getting any handshakes/jersey swapping, etc. So then a huge fight broke out in the tunnel. Both NT's could face a ban: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=349341&cc=5901

[canso]

Mini riot at Scallywags after that game. About 40 Turks and two Swiss guys watching the game, made for a great atmosphere, but when the final whistle blew there were tables overturned, cutlery flying about, glasses broken and much verbal abuse!

Gotta love multiculturalism. On any given day you can live through the joy and despair of any given nationality.

[amacpher]

Time for FIFA to do something. They're talking about banning Turkey from 2008 Euros and 2010 World cup. Don't think it'll come to that. But they should have to play in an empty stadium for the entire 2008 Euro qualifying, I think.

The video is here... on the right-side:

http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2005/11/17/index.html

[Metro]

quote:Originally posted by canso

Mini riot at Scallywags after that game. About 40 Turks and two Swiss guys watching the game, made for a great atmosphere, but when the final whistle blew there were tables overturned, cutlery flying about, glasses broken and much verbal abuse!

Gotta love multiculturalism. On any given day you can live through the joy and despair of any given nationality.

How did it start? (Oh those crazy, crazy Swiss![8D])

[loyola]

quote:Originally posted by sstackho

Geez, the announcers are still going on about this "controversial incident". For those that didn't see it, the Bahrain player kicked the ball away while the T&T keeper was in the process of a drop-kick. There was no contact made, but that's irrelevant. Boring as the rule might be, you can't take the ball away from the keeper unless he drops it to the ground. You can't even take it away from him if he's bouncing it.

Second half was much better than the first.

Are you sure, I always thought you could do that as long as you're not fouling the keeper. Maybe the right call should have been a dangerous kick??? Not sure, I thought it was a bad call.

[canso]

The two Swiss guys applauded quietly and left quickly with many a nervous backwards glance.

As to why the Turks were so mad, well, it was all in Turkish but I gather they felt a penalty should have been given late on..but I think they were just generally angry. Very passionate people those Turks.

[Metro]

quote:Originally posted by amacpher

Time for FIFA to do something. They're talking about banning Turkey from 2008 Euros and 2010 World cup. Don't think it'll come to that. But they should have to play in an empty stadium for the entire 2008 Euro qualifying, I think.

The video is here... on the right-side:

http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2005/11/17/index.html

This footage is pretty funny...I just posted a link in the other WCQ thread showing video of the event beginning a few seconds earlier than what this footage showed. Here's the link again:

http://www.streamload.com/shaolinax/Kicking-Beni.wmv

[amacpher]

quote:Originally posted by loyola

Are you sure, I always thought you could do that as long as you're not fouling the keeper. Maybe the right call should have been a dangerous kick??? Not sure, I thought it was a bad call.

Yes, he's correct:

FIFA Law 12, Question 19:

19. As a goalkeeper releases the ball to kick it into play, an opponent intercepts it before it touches the ground. Is this permitted?

No. It is an offence to prevent a goalkeeper releasing the ball from his hands. The releasing of the ball from his hands and the kicking of the ball is considered to be a single action.

[amacpher]

quote:Originally posted by Metro

This footage is pretty funny...I just posted a link in the other WCQ thread showing video of the event beginning a few seconds earlier than what this footage showed. Here's the link again:

http://www.streamload.com/shaolinax/Kicking-Beni.wmv

Thanks, I was looking for that video that displayed the dirty Turks' guilt. The Swiss player being hospitalized with a kick to the groin in the tunnel is the capper.

[sstackho]

quote:Originally posted by loyola

Are you sure, I always thought you could do that as long as you're not fouling the keeper. Maybe the right call should have been a dangerous kick??? Not sure, I thought it was a bad call.

FIFA Questions and Answers to the Laws of the Game - #19

quote:Q: As a goalkeeper releases the ball to kick it into play, an opponent intercepts it before it touches the ground. Is this permitted?

A: No. It is an offence to prevent a goalkeeper releasing the ball from his hands. The releasing of the ball from his hands and the kicking of the ball is considered to be a single action.

Even with the rule being that clear cut, if you can believe it, Bahrain are filing a protest over the disallowed goal. How frivolous.

[amacpher]

LMAO!! Even if the rule was not clear-cut, is it even challengable?? Isn't this like challenging a goal disallowed because of an offsides call??

[amacpher]

LMAO!! Even if the rule was not clear-cut, is it even challengable?? Isn't this like challenging a goal disallowed because of an offsides call??

[River City]

FIFA set a dangerous precedent by reversing the ref's decision in the first Bahrain - Uzbekistan game. Now every country with money to peddle will try to lobby FIFA to reverse game results....

[Joe Concacaf]

quote:Originally posted by River City

FIFA set a dangerous precedent by reversing the ref's decision in the first Bahrain - Uzbekistan game. Now every country with money to peddle will try to lobby FIFA to reverse game results....

Very true. But didn't the Uzbeks protest that first game?

[Daniel]

Yes, because the referee made a technical mistake and disregarded a rule which should have meant a penalty retake.

[MFC]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Yes, because the referee made a technical mistake and disregarded a rule which should have meant a penalty retake.

I don't think Uzbekistan protested, they actually won the game even though they were penalised by the referee.

It was Blatter that ordered the game to be replayed, which of course Bahrain then won. In reality Bahrain should not have been playing T&T.

The referee gave an indirect free kick for encrouchment of a defending player during a penalty kick. The correct decision should have been a retake.

[amacpher]

quote:Originally posted by MFC

I don't think Uzbekistan protested, they actually won the game even though they were penalised by the referee.

It was Blatter that ordered the game to be replayed, which of course Bahrain then won. In reality Bahrain should not have been playing T&T.

The referee gave an indirect free kick for encrouchment of a defending player during a penalty kick. The correct decision should have been a retake.

Right, but to me that's different. That's a case where the referee was playing by his own rulebook. In this case (T&T v Bahrain) it was a judgement call by the referee (ie. was the ball still in the 'keepers possession or not). Therefore, I would think this recent case is unchallengable. Like i said, its no different than a goal being wiped-out because of an offsides call.

[sstackho]

quote:Originally posted by MFC

I don't think Uzbekistan protested, they actually won the game even though they were penalised by the referee.

Uzbekistan did file a protest concerning the technical errors in the first leg. They requested that the match result be cancelled and replaced with a 3-0 forfeit result. The Uzbekistan protest was rejected, and the match was cancelled and ordered to be replayed.

I don't know if FIFA would have stepped in had Uzbekistan not filed a formal protest.

And I agree with amacpher - the call that Bahrain is protesting is not challengeable. But I guess Bahrain became big fans of the protest option, seeing as it treated them well in the past.

[Rivaldo]

A nice story that let me forget about the odious Jack Warner and wish T&T good luck representing CONCACAF in the World Cup.

From Flatbush, Chants of 'Ger-ma-ny, Ger-ma-ny'

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: November 17, 2005

"Once in a lifetime," Damian Snagg said. "You only see this once."

He was absolutely right. In Flatbush, Brooklyn, right there on the television yesterday, Trinidad and Tobago was trying to qualify for the World Cup. It had never happened before.

Trinidad and Tobago had come heartbreakingly close in 1989, however, when Paul Caligiuri of the United States put the boot to the two-island nation on the final day of qualifying.

Americans remember that day with a touch of sadness and guilt. Never have we seen such sportsmanship as we saw that November day in Port of Spain. The stunned fans, all of them wearing red, patted American journalists on our backs, congratulating us, as if we had anything to do with it.

Caligiuri remembers that day, not only for his booming 25-yard goal in the first half, but also for the way the Yanks were treated after the game.

"We arrived in two little vans and walked right through the crowd,'' Caligiuri recalled the other day.

Then, after the 1-0 victory, the United States had to leave in the same two flimsy vans.

"I've played in Latin America and the Caribbean, where they throw rocks at you, the military police have to stop them from rocking your bus," Caligiuri continued.

"Never, ever, did you hear people congratulate you the way people did in Trinidad. The guys started giving them paraphernalia - our shin guards, our headbands, anything. We appreciated it so much. Normally, you'd be ducking down in your seat.''

That was the start of a rising American era of soccer-five straight World Cups as of next year. But 16 years was a long time for T&T to wait for another chance. All over the world, there are smaller nations trying to reach the World Cup just once, for a chance to play Brazil and Germany. These ethnic supporters mysteriously do not show up on television ratings, but they are all over the United States.

Half a dozen men from the islands, who play for the Synergism SC of Brooklyn, were fidgeting in Derek Marshall's apartment yesterday, watching good old Fox Soccer Channel. Either T&T, with a population of 1.3 million, or Bahrain, with a population of 727,000, would become the smallest nation to reach the World Cup. Because of a road goal in the 1-1 draw in Trinidad last Saturday, Bahrain would qualify with a scoreless tie at home yesterday, a huge advantage.

Marshall, a friend of a friend of a friend, had invited me to root with his countrymen yesterday. I don't mind admitting it: I came to root, wearing a red shirt. Before the game, I rang up Caligiuri, now the men's and women's coach at Cal Poly Pomona in California.

"I am rooting for them," Caligiuri said the other day.

"Every place I go, there's somebody from Trinidad.

They look at me and say, 'I am Trinidadian.' I just want them to win so I can get off parole.''

I handed my cellphone to Marshall, Snagg and Earl Boyce. Caligiuri invited them to visit sometime. Their laughter seemed like a good omen. We ate spicy jerk chicken, rice and beans and drank beer. (Marshall had supplied Beck's, and I had brought some St Pauli Girl - two great minds thinking alike: German beer for good luck.)

Early in the first half, Chris Birchall, the English-born minor leaguer whose mother is from Trinidad and who had scored the 30-yard Caligiurian-style boomer last Saturday, was injured and had to leave the game. This was not a good omen.

T&T was clearly the better team - but without a goal, its stutter steps and deft passes would be worthless.

The score was 0-0 at halftime. Early in the second half, Dwight Yorke took a corner kick. Once a top striker in England, Yorke was facing the possibility of never playing in a World Cup, like George Weah of Liberia and Ryan Giggs of Wales and George Best of Northern Ireland.

Yorke whacked a high, curving kick, and Dennis Lawrence, all 6 feet 7 inches, rose above the sparse Bahrain defence and headed the goal between a defender's sluggish ankles. In Flatbush, pandemonium began.

Now began the scary part. Marshall, our host, kept telling the defenders, "Get back, get back, that's what soccer is all about." We writhed as Bahrain stripped the ball from the goalkeeper for an apparent goal, only to have the referee nullify the play, ruling a foul had been committed against the goalkeeper. Marshall, who knows the game, thought the referee was wrong, but the call stood.

As the final whistle blew for a 1-0 victory, we all stood up and traded high-fives. I reached Paul Caligiuri's answering machine, and Brian George, Dave Dean and Henry Inniss and the others chanted "Ger-ma-ny! Ger-ma-ny!'' into the phone. The sporting gesture of that crowd in Port of Spain in 1989, 16 long years ago, had been rewarded.