Like the Serbian player Kewell was punished 3 times for the one foul. The red card, penalty & however many games they will miss as punishment for a hand ball FIFA will issue. And yet the foul on Bresciano got nothing but Cahills got a straight red. And I have some jokers on this blog supporting the refs.

Gee FIFA Have a LOT TO ANSWER FOR. Fancy Appointing an ITALIAN REFEREE after the debacle of 2006 ! Both AUSTRALIAN RED CARDS were 40/60 DECISIONS. ( ALL I CAN SAY THAT IF IT WAS GERMANY, ENGLAND, BRAZIL OR ITALY the decisions would be completely DIFFERENT. THE 2 SERBIAN PENALTIES WERE MORE BLATANT THAN KEWELL'S BUT YELLOWS WERE ONLY ISSUED. We have clearly used ALL OUR LUCK IN THE QUALIFICATION ROUNDS ( BAHRAIN, JAPAN AWAY). I am so proud of YOU SOCCEROOS AND WISH YOU ALL THE BEST v SERBIA.

Thought i would post a section from the French Sports newspaper Le'Equipe this morning... Very well written and fitting even in translation:

"Certainly, Australia is experiencing a complicated love story with the World Cup. Out on a refereeing error for their first experience in 2006, the Socceroos have returned to competition Supreme painfully, losing heavily against Germany (0-4), while losing badly and Tim Cahill being denied a blatant penalty. Against Ghana, team Pim Verbeek may once again consider themselves aggrieved by the decisions of referees. The double penalty - expulsion from Kewell and penalty - imposed by Mr. Rosetti (25th) has relaunched the Black Stars, albeit a penalty which was totally apathetic and harmless. Then the man in black has shown mild with Ghanaian Lee Addy, only cautioned for a tackle from behind on particularly dangerous Bresciano (39th).

Despite these injustices, the Australians, valiant and brave, got caught and proved one thing. They have talent and heart. And today, it was these two features that allow them - yet - to aspire to a better tomorrow.

It Was an absolute joke , wasnt a pen or red card seen thousand of them waved play on and the ref completly rawted
us and it is a real shame. The ref sould be dropped as his disgraceful performance and should never ever be aloud to ref a game again. WE WERE RAWTED

The way England are playing at the moment, I'd rather go up against them than a confident Slovenia.

Vidic didn't stop the ball hitting the back of the net though.

Vidic did look like he wanted to mark the ball. I guess our luck is shithouse because we're not a Euro team, or South American, and African (in that order).

How Cahill got a red in the other game and that one Ghanian didn't is amazing.

Kewell's handball was less deliberate than Vidic's AFL (ateepmt to) catch.

I am hoping Ghana to get another lucky penalty and red against a German player and will have to face England and get thumped while we come 2nd and get Slovenia

I cant believe some are agreeing with the send off decision. The super slow motion makes it look worse then what it was but but if you watch it in real time it was a bullet shot and his natural instinct was to get behind the ball, sure it partly touched his arm but if he deliberately parried it away with his arm then the referees decision would have been granted.The penalty was there yes, but deliberate? No way! If only Kewell had the luxury of slowing down the game in his mind to super slow motion... well... that only happens in The Matrix :lol:

Take note, You are retarded and probably prefer netball. This is football mate, you are obviously not educated on the rules of the game.

Bullshit red number 2 takes off our second best player. No doubt against Serbia, bullshit red number 3 will take off Schwarzer. This is the second world cup in a row we have been terrirized by idiot and obviously corrupt refs. If I wasn't laughing at the obvious and open corruption to ease a mediocre African team into certain death at the hands of England in the round of 16, I'd be spewing. Corrupt bullshit FIFA can fuckr igh toff.

Here was the Eurosport's web page live version of the Kewell incident.

24' PENALTY TO GHANA AND A RED CARD FOR KEWELL! Mensah's effort strikes the Aussie striker on the arm, denying Ghana a certain goal! And it's red for Kewell and a penalty for Ghana! Great work by Ayew on the by-line to set up the chance...

25' Kewell argues for ages... but he can't have any complaints...

Take a note. Complain all you want but it was the right decision. Once again Australians gloss over the game with an incident but Wilkshire had the chance to win the game and missed.

Ouch.
Well done for hanging on for the draw, the sending off was a bit harsh. It did strike his arm but didn't look intentional so perhaps a yellow and the penalty.

You guys played well to get the draw though & had chances to finish it off. Great effort

On the soft free kicks given to the Ghanains, it was a bit of a 2 way street out there tonight. Chipperfields in the 2nd half was poor, he tripped over his own feet with no contact whatsoever & the free kick that led to your goal was a bit soft. The player looked up saw the Ghanain sliding and ran into to him to get the free kick (much like a certian Itaian at the last World Cup). However aside from that I agree ref was poor.

You guys played very well to hold on for the draw & even pushed on to try and get the win. With 11 men I think you would have won. I still maintain that you can beat Serbia & get through to the next round.

No afromanGT... you are wrong mate.

Cameroon is mathematically out.
Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria are on life support and need a miracle to get out of their respective groups. I would pay 100-1 for any of those 3 to make the 2nd round.

Ghana have only scored 2 penalties and so far they look likeliest to progress.

Jury is out on Ivory Coast and they have Brazil next up.

Take a second look at all the African teams and their results and current positions and it does not make for good reading from an African point of view.

Africans aren't doing any better or worse than they would have anywhere else tbh. Though we're only one game into the cup for two of them and none of them are out just yet.

For those of you guys that missed the Bresciano wicked bad snub of Graham Arnold... It played out like this...

Bresciano is walking off the pitch after subbing with Chippers and Arnold walks out to the 1/2 way point of the technical area to lay some skin (put his hand out either to shake or give a high five).

At no point does Bresciano acknowledge Arnold... just totally ignores him/looks straight past him/says f#%k off c*#t... haha made that last part up but you get the idea.

It basically ends with Arnold trying to save face by him high fiving Bresciano's right pec...
All in all it makes Arnold look proper rare

I have the game recorded onto playstation thru but would not have any idea on how to get that particular section onto youtube.

P.S Anyone else agree that the African nations are playing really poor in this World Cup?... All the pundits were saying things like "Africans will do really well coz it's in Africa".... "blah blah"...

I honestly thought... "yeah right .... that counts for nothing and there is no reason why they will do any good... the Europeans will romp it in because it winter are cold and the conditions are normal for them"

no African team has show anything special... Ghana have only scored penalties and Algeria held England... otherwise... Nigeria and Sth Africa are out early and as I type this... Cameroon are getting beat 2-1. Ivory Coast are still yet to play twice.

Vidmar doesn't have the qualifications yet. Still won't for a while so there's no point in the FFA dilly-dally-ing until they can appoint them if they can find someone more qualified. Hell, even Lavicka would be a better option.

He'll be running CCM.

It'll be Vidmar if anyone from Australia running the NT.

10 men, 65 odd minutes. That was bloddy well done by the Socceroos tonight, we had some good chances towards the end but no luck.

We were the better team tonight, Ghana deserve nothing.

I am absolutly gutted about the Red on Harry, I hope we can contest it, but have no confidence in the review process.

I really do hope that the players know how proud we all are of the performance they put in tonight. If they can do the same again on Wed then with some luck (Or non-shit refereeing) we shall get the 3 points.

It is great to be able to take pride in our team again.

Ah, I see! Hmm that makes alot more sense now actually, because IF you were in Asia, you probably wouldn't like us AT ALL. :lol: Infact I wouldn't be surprised if a few football fans from various Asian nations would consider our NT arrogant, given what happened as the 2007 Asian Cup, with some of the comments to the media etc... and certainly a few of the Asian NTs, the more medium sized gulf ones especially, have had troubles with the Australian team, or wider crew, including the coach of Bahrain I think it was (Who is Uruguayan I think), who was apparently accosted by our team's 'Team Manager' (Not Verbeek or Verbeek's role, but a guy who handles organising the team's affairs off the field), Gary Moretti in the player's tunnel over the 'play acting of his team's players' or something.

We're obviously quite new to Asia and are still taking some time to adjust to the different football culture aswell as wider culture. We were a big fish, bully even, in the small pond of Oceania, but now we're in the biggest Confederation in the World and it's certainly a 'whole new world.'

BTW We're played Colombia once or twice, in the late 90s I think. Whoever was in the Socceroos team that played you guys in that friendly, I'm fairly sure that there may still be one or two of the present Socceroos team would've featured in that match - Likely Craig Moore and maybe Mark Schwarzer.

Edit: I searched FIFA's site and this is what I found:

From 01.01.1872 To 31.12.2010

Australia   0:0   Colombia
08/02/1995   Brisbane    Friendly

Australia   0:1 (0:0)   Colombia
11/02/1995   Sydney    Friendly

Colombia   3:2 (1:0)   Australia
28/02/2001   Bogota    Friendly

Ah that Bogota friendly, that's the one I remember! Now that Socceroos team would've featured many of the present Socceroos side - guys like Moore, Schwarzer, Chipperfield, Emerton and possibly Kewell, though Kewell may be unlikely given he hardly turned out for Australia in friendlies outside Europe, not in those days. Retirees of recent years, some of whom you may be familiar with, like Josip Skoko, Tony Popovic, Tony Vidmar and Stan Lazaridis ALL were quite likely to have featured in Bogota too, as too Paul Okon.[/quote]

I would have liked to see socceroos in my country.. perhaps I am going to see Socceroos in the next World Cup Brazil 2014, because it is closer... I hope Roos are going to qualify again. Regards. So, I am supporting Australia for two reasons... very good spirit and I love your country.

He still has a year to run on his contract with the FFA IIRC.

I thought it was guaranteed that arnold was out for good after this WC?

Props to Bresc and all for that and all, but that could be a REALLY bad idea if the FFA does the incredibly stupid thing that may seem 'logical' and hires Arnold on for the duration of the Asian Cup until a "more permanent" replacement for Verbeek can be found.

The thing that disgusts me about all this is the power a football ref has over the game, I mean these guys literally possess the means to end people's careers based on a split second decision. Its a dated system, and an almost perverted amount of power these guys wield. Worst of all - they rarely, if ever, are called upon to explain and/or justify their decision, or have it overruled for that matter. It's ludicrous.

Edited by Dogsdogsdogs: 20/6/2010 04:10:37 AM

Edited by Dogsdogsdogs: 20/6/2010 04:14:06 AM

Hmm yeah I thought I noticed that snub, but I only caught the back end of it - I thought/presumed that maybe either he HAD reciprocated just I missed it or he didn't and maybe that's kind of the norm if a player remains despondently non reactive in response, given he's disappointed to be subbed or may be tired. But again, I missed the key moment JUST before and I suppose it's there where you can tell whether it's a snub or something more innocent like tiredness. Nevertheless there was alot going on at the time, I was right on the edge of my seat, literally, and I'm sure a number of you were aswell! Infact lol later I couldn't even bare to sit, I had to stand right near the TV, to get a closer look and for all my gesticulations and reactions! :lol:

Though BTW, anyone notice how Arnie was right in Ruka's ear when we were about to sub him on, giving him all sorts of instruction? It really came across and re-inforced the idea that Ruka is 'Arnie's boy,' as in re: Ruka' was a shock selection from Arnie for the final Olympic squad. But people PLEASE don't hold that against, or take that to reflect on, West Aussie and former Glory star Ruka,' and FTR Ruka still deserves/earnt fairly his place on this team, on the back of his form in his loan spell in Belgium's top tier.

Edited by GloryPerth: 20/6/2010 04:08:01 AM

Good effort from the boys. That's the thing that was lacking against Germany I don't really care if we lose and crash out it's ok. Our boys did me proud tonight. And to the ref my I say fuck you, you worthless scum

Ah, I see! Hmm that makes alot more sense now actually, because IF you were in Asia, you probably wouldn't like us AT ALL. :lol: Infact I wouldn't be surprised if a few football fans from various Asian nations would consider our NT arrogant, given what happened as the 2007 Asian Cup, with some of the comments to the media etc... and certainly a few of the Asian NTs, the more medium sized gulf ones especially, have had troubles with the Australian team, or wider crew, including the coach of Bahrain I think it was (Who is Uruguayan I think), who was apparently accosted by our team's 'Team Manager' (Not Verbeek or Verbeek's role, but a guy who handles organising the team's affairs off the field), Gary Moretti in the player's tunnel over the 'play acting of his team's players' or something.

We're obviously quite new to Asia and are still taking some time to adjust to the different football culture aswell as wider culture. We were a big fish, bully even, in the small pond of Oceania, but now we're in the biggest Confederation in the World and it's certainly a 'whole new world.'

BTW We're played Colombia once or twice, in the late 90s I think. Whoever was in the Socceroos team that played you guys in that friendly, I'm fairly sure that there may still be one or two of the present Socceroos team would've featured in that match - Likely Craig Moore and maybe Mark Schwarzer.

Edit: I searched FIFA's site and this is what I found:

From 01.01.1872 To 31.12.2010

Australia   0:0   Colombia
08/02/1995   Brisbane    Friendly

Australia   0:1 (0:0)   Colombia
11/02/1995   Sydney    Friendly

Colombia   3:2 (1:0)   Australia
28/02/2001   Bogota    Friendly

Ah that Bogota friendly, that's the one I remember! Now that Socceroos team would've featured many of the present Socceroos side - guys like Moore, Schwarzer, Chipperfield, Emerton and possibly Kewell, though Kewell may be unlikely given he hardly turned out for Australia in friendlies outside Europe, not in those days. Retirees of recent years, some of whom you may be familiar with, like Josip Skoko, Tony Popovic, Tony Vidmar and Stan Lazaridis ALL were quite likely to have featured in Bogota too, as too Paul Okon.

Rash_Challenge, Unless I read a different SMH Cockerill article.. There is no way he ripped into the team. If anything, he lauds their efforts. I don't think it is him with the Vendetta, however, maybe you have one for him?

+1 i didn't get to see it :)

yes please i would love to see this as well