Comments on: Poll Nearly Flawless in Ukrainian U-Turn…and Memories of Valencia ‘05

By: Bobbio

Bobbio — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 04:27:47 +0000

Hohoho Poll fell to pieces in the Australia game! Three yellow cards for Simunic! Bwahaha!

By: vince

vince — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:15:14 +0000

…and missed out so much of the shirt pulling by croatian defenders and another handball. australian are through to 2nd round but i still think australia deserves a win.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:32:22 +0000

Good to hear Poll was flawless, because he’s refing the Australia game next!

Aaron, I’d be interested to hear your take on the Harry Kewell incident and FIFA’s response.

By: owen

owen — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 07:28:01 +0000

shades of the england game today when ashley cole was called for handball when he was clearly trying to avoid it. he was lucky that the ref didn’t seem him calling the assistant a f^%^% w*&^&^ right afterward though. The whole rest of the world certainly saw it!

By: Pat

Pat — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:55:25 +0000

Interesting that you keep referring to bookings as a result of a “deliberate handball”. I was not aware that there was any other sort of handball.

This is a misconception which plagues leagues at all levels worldwide. If there is no deliberacy, there is no handball as the Laws of the Game clearly state the foul is “deliberately handling the ball”.

Players like Thierry Henry, who are quoted although they obviously have no idea what they’re talking about, further the misconception people have. When he was whining about an alleged missed call that would have resulted in a penalty kick, he acknowledged the fact that it was ball-to-hand but said as it took away a goal scoring opportunity it should be a foul.

Wrong, who cares what it does? An unintentional handball could score a goal and it wouldn’t make a difference.