<p>Anyone see the red card given to the Nigerian player in the game vs. Greece? I imagine he will face a lot of anger back home, given the Nigerians were huge favorites. Greece had never before scored a goal in World Cup play, much less 2 goals AND a win.</p>
<p>Such an unnecessary foul-don’t know what that guy was thinking.</p>
<p>^That was one of the stupidest mistakes i’ve seen in the whole tournament. Nigeria’s going to have a tough time advancing out of the group stages.</p>
<p>Experienced people: do you agree that the second Mexico goal, from the penalty kick, came from a good call? I was watching Univision, which of course thought the penalty call was perfectly correct.</p>
<p>I couldn’t tell. A soccer website I visit occasionally seemed to be in agreement that it was a good call.</p>
<p>CF,</p>
<p>I was watching in Portuguese (ESPNDeportes) and I thought the call was OK. And it was a pleasure not to listen to the stupid gOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOl as one always hears on Univision. To me that’s worse than the vuvuzelas.</p>
<p>Just saw a replay of the foul on ESPN. The British commentator said it was stupid, blatant, and uncalled for. For what that’s worth.</p>
<p>There’s a 99% chance that S Africa will not make it to 2nd round as a host (first time ever happens in world cup history)</p>
<p>Technically, S Korea has the best chance of advancing, then Greece, then Nigeria.</p>
<p>^It’s sad, but true. SA may make unwanted history, but most of the other world cups have been hosted by countries with a good record of football (Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc).</p>
<p>Nigeria could still pull out of Group B, but they would have to beat South Korea handily and hope that Argentina puts up a great performance against Greece.</p>
<p>I like GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. It’s a lot better than the American broadcast. Plus it helps me improve my Spanish. I’ve gotten so I can understand a good deal of what the broadcasters are saying.</p>
<p>The penalty was pretty close to as obvious as they get.</p>
<p>Yeah the PK was a fair, good call.<br>
The first goal, however, looked offsides to me…</p>
<p>I have a lot of respect for SA as a host not to get themselves some easy opponents and rely on refs call to advance as some other countries did.</p>
<p>Univision showed a lot of replays, with computer enhancement, that purported to show that the first goal was juuuust onside.</p>
<p>^^^I watched the game on ESPN and they have something along those lines and showed him to be either just barely onside or just barely offsides. They said in cases like that, benefit goes to the offense. Plus, the AR doesn’t have computer enhancement, he has only a moment to make a call.</p>
<p>Or is there a call made from up in the booth to let him know?</p>
<p>tigerdad,</p>
<p>SA had no choice. In December the ping pong balls did the draw. Somewhere upthread I believe soccerguy gave us a detailed outline of what went on that day.</p>
<p>The host can not choose their opponents, it’s being drawn. There are 8 seeds for 8 groups and the host is one of them. Depending on the qualification performance and FIFA rankings, 7 other teams will be selected as the seed for each group. The teams are divided into 4 pots and that’s how they draw teams into each group.</p>
<p>Usually the host has lots of advantages by controlling venues, locations, schedule, tickets, fans… They can set a schedule so that they can have lots of rest and less travel compared to other teams in the group. Recently the world cup were held at countries with average soccer teams (USA 94, Japan + Korea 2002). These teams managed to qualify as the winners of their groups (USA didn’t even have pro soccer back in 94, the team was composed of college students). It’s just unfortunate for SA that they don’t have a great team coming into this world cup. But there’s still a chance (very small) if they beat France 4-0 or so and Mexico / Uruguay loses (which is very likely since the winner can avoid Argentina). But I don’t see that happening with either SA or France scoring 4/5 goals.</p>
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<p>Those computer animations were BS, but the original replay showed that his feet were even, so he was onside.</p>
<p>I know it was pingpong balls. But somehow the other host countries always got lucky.</p>
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<p>Which makes that a brilliant goal. When he first approached the goal, I thought he MUST have been offside to be so far ahead of the field. Instead, he just blew by everyone at the exact perfect moment.</p>
<p>I wasn’t talking about computer animations, but of slow-motion replays with computer-drawn planes of offside-ness.</p>