One Fish, Two Fish, A Red Fish, A Yellow Fish

Yeah, I agree. I don’t like a lot of yellow cards being given out, since innocent attempts at getting the ball are so vary so much in how it ends up.

The Italy/Ghana match was a good one. I’d rather that there were a few clashes that went unnoticed over a game that has a lot of them.

In the Korea/Togo game, I am not sure that that Togo player deserved a second yellow card. My friend and I disagree over this, about standards for it, but the handing out of a second yellow should have steeper requirements than the first, because the loss of a player is so much more crucial to a team.

So anyway, yeah. Too many yellow cards = making me nervous.

Posted from  Canada

It’s interesting you say that here because so many of the 2002 World Cup games in which South Korea played were arguably won because of players being red carded or second-yellow carded. Italy and Spain come to mind, though I may need to be corrected, as I’m just commenting off memory…

Did you see the Switzerland/England game? Now there was a fairly invisible ref…

Posted from  Australia

Yewon, so? I’d rather my favoured teams lose a clean match than win a botched game. I’m obligated to cheer for Korea (being Korean-Canadian) but…I hope Spain gets at least to the semi-finals because I clearly remember all the “mistakes” the referees made in the 2002 World Cup against them (i.e. when the ball was called ‘out’ when it was clearly on the line; when the Korean goalie was outside of the net during the penalty shoot-out when he’s supposed to be on the line, etc.) I don’t remember whether the cards were totally unjustified that year but the red against the Ukrainian player today was horrible (and Spain was already dominating!)

So yeah, the Korea Republic got some breaks in 2002 but I don’t remember if the cards were clearly unjustified. Some of the refereeing did look suspicious to me but it wasn’t always blatantly wrong. I kind of remember the Italians being a bit rough, but it could have been because they were frustrated with other things to begin with. They’ve really improved this year.

I didn’t watch the Switzerland/England match. An invisible ref isn’t always the best. A good, consistent and minimal one is what we want.

Go Korea, and, more realistically, Spain!

Posted from  Canada

It was a shame for the Togan player, but he was the last defender. A card is pretty much automatic then. I thought the yellow was flashed WAY too much during the Swiss/French match. Despite it being physical, it was mostly clean or at least ambiguous. The Spanish penalty was shocking and completely undeserved, but what we see and what the ref sees at full speed are two totally different things.

I have to agree with Alternaababe with the 2002 match. At least one of the Spanish goals was legit. The Koreans won the Italian game.

Posted from  Australia