Sunday, June 11, 2006

Poor Ivorians

Shaka Hislop made SIX world-class saves to deny Sweden the points as Trinidad and Tobago clinched their first ever point in the World Cup. The West Ham keeper was lucky to be picked after TnT's first choice goalkeeper was injured 10 minutes before kick-off. Leo Bennhakker's faith on the veteran paid dividends when Hislop made back to back reflex saves to put misery on prolific Swedish strikers Henrik Larsson and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

England, by the way, won their opening boring match with an own goal by Carlos Gamarra. Captain Beckham curled in the free kick before finding Gamarra's weak clearance turned him into an infidel of his national team Paraguay.

The Ivorians boasted great attributes in their team with their blisterring pace and robust physique. In addition, their first touch was superb, except for Aruna Dindane. The actors of football Argentina saw their former great Maradona dancing and cheering when they were 2-0 up thanks to a poor decision by the linesman to let the goal stand. Not interrupting play my ass. Crespo was clearly offside and Saviola got the ball to prod in their second.

When Crespo strayed offside, the galant Ivorian defence deployed their offside trap. They did it simply because they know Crespo was offside. So how can you say Crespo was not interrupting play when the ball was passed?

Interrupting or not, getting the ball or not, an offside position is defined as any player who strayed ahead of the opponents' defence line when the ball was played forward.

Poor Ivorians. Maybe the ref is a racist. Maybe.

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