Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord
I agree that it is cheating, and that he knew it what the penalty of his actions was. If you think about, this guy single-handedly cheated an entire country out of a shot at a title. If this was an exhibition match, I would say that a two game suspension would be fair. But at this level of play, this guy should be banned for at least 4 years, including the next tournament (assuming Uruguay was to qualify). Other great players would never, ever, consider doing something this despicable.
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Ehm...excuse me, but every player in his right mind would have done exactly the same, be it thought through, or an impulsive reaction. It's either blocking the ball with your hands, or allow a goal with less than a minute on the clock. This has been spoken over by many journalists and players alike, and they all agree on one thing....it's a last resort, and all would have done the same if given the choice. If a player is about to break through your defense and has an open shot on your goal...would you not set in a tackle from behind to eliminate that threat? Sure, the concequence would be a red card, but the result would be NO goal for the opposite side, and thus a fair chance to still win the game. Professional players make fouls like this all the time, haven't you seen how Inter won the CL this year? The teams that play dominant attractive football like ManU, Barcelona, or Arsenal, sometimes get outsmarted by dirty playing teams like Inter, that's how it works in football.
I still don't agree that it's cheating. It's breaking the rules and face the concequences. Nobody here would have made an issue out of this if that Ghanese player would have made that penalty, but the idiot missed a golden opportunity to shoot Ghana into the semi's, well...sorry you had your shot, you missed it, so byebye. There's many examples of players that influenced the outcome of a game by using their hands, and none of them were ever seriously punished for it, even though there was footage to back up the case against them. Ask the English and the Irish, i'm sure they have lots to tell ya about that.
To make a long story short...players have and always WILL use their hands if it improves their chances of winning a game, and by not getting seriously punished for it, FIFA only stimulates this type of behaviour.