Tuesday, June 20, 2006

World Cup Germany 2006! --brought to you by Hallmark

The way they're handing out cards at this World Cup soccer tournament, you'd think that Hallmark was a sponsor.

"Referees handed out 102 yellow cards and five red cards in the first 21 matches of the competition, an average of 4.9 yellow cards per match. An average of 4.25 yellows per game were handed out at the 2002 World Cup: 272 yellows and 17 reds in 64 matches.
...In Spain in 1982, 98 yellow cards were shown. [That's an average of 1.5 cards per game.]"
link
The USA has gotten 2 red cards--more than any other team in the tournament thus far. And yet the USA has some of the best integrity when it comes to taking flops, a weakness for many of the best teams.

I'd like to see officials give out cards for flopping players by using video replay. They could do it throughout the match, or during half-time. I'd also like to suggest that FIFA get a new card--something worse than yellow, but not as bad as red. Maybe something that would throw a player out for just the remainder of the game, but not banishing him from the next game. Red cards should be reserved for throwers of punches and eye-gougers. Has anyone seen or heard of a card getting pulled on a player for floppping yet in this tournament? I haven't, but I also haven't seen every minute of every game. (Anyway, I mostly just wanted to make the joke about Hallmark with this post.)

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dunno about making a new card, but video replay would be a great advantage for soccer. With it, the refs could make the right call all the time. I too hate it when players dive and make a tackle look much worse than what it actualy was.

7:43 PM  

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