Monday, August 27, 2007

a farce

it was a nightmare start. 0-3 at home, to your regional rival, two red cards. what could be worse than that? i woke up this morning hoping that what i had seen was a nightmare, but it wasn't.

first, let me talk about our mistakes. villa shouldn't have dived to get that second yellow card. joaquin shouldn't have said what he said, if he said anything at all. flores shouldn't have taken miguel off at half-time. At 0-1, we still had a chance but this move meant we were playing a 3-man defence, and it was cruelly exposed. I don't know why Marchena went to tackle matias fernandes and concede the penalty, because it wasn't that threatening. but i suppose it has a lot to do with the pressure the defence had to cope with in the 3-man defence. and the third goal was precisely because we had no width in defence. and it showed that the midfield did not do its work. we simply didn't get going.

now, i am amused that rob styles has become an overnight sensation over his gaffe in the pool-chelsea match. i watched the match myself and i must say that it was ridiculous. the controversy i mean. they have overblown it. i don't like liverpool, neither do i like chelsea. i certainly don't like mourinho, but i have to agree with him. the referee was ok. he only made one real mistake, which was the penalty. and didn't gerrard himself benefit from such a mistake against aston villa? if you ask me, the reason why all the newspapers here talk about it as though rob styles had murdered someone is because the writers must all have been liverpool fans, because if you are, you surely will feel that way.

but if you want to talk about biased officiating. why don't you look at what happened in valencia? no wonder the crowd was angry. every time a valencia player touches a villareal player, it is a foul. every time a villareal player touches a valencia player, it is a dive. and i can't believe villareal got away with the cynical scything down of joaquin and david silva. in fact, i am so impressed that the referee could give villa a yellow card for contesting his decision not to give him a free kick, which i thought he had a strong case for. it had severe implications, as we all know, when villa dived. if you ask me, i think the referee shouldn't have sent him off but give him a warning, because he didn't give him a warning the first time round when villa protested, but straight away gave him a yellow, which was ridiculous. it was really up to his discretion, he need not have followed the rules all the time. and when joaquin protested in the second half, he sent him off straight. and the game was over. in fact, everyone from albelda to even morientes were amused and protesting.

and you wonder why villareal players don't protest. why should they? every decision was going their way. it is amazing that villareal got only one yellow card for all their cynical fouling when rossi went in late on i-forgot-who. but by then, villareal were comfortably 2-0 up against 9 men and the referee had started giving valencia the benefit of the doubt, no doubt with an eye to preserving his life beyond midnight.

it was absolutely ridiculous. we shouldn't have reacted the way we did, we shouldn't have protested or whatever, but just take a deep breathe, take everything in, and go and do our job, beat villareal despite the odds and shut them up. we didn't, but can i really blame them? they were at fault, but i can't blame them, because everyone can feel the frustration, the disgust.

the fans might be disappointed by the players' performance, but i think they are even more disgusted by the referee. the refereeing was terrible because he didn't let the game flow, and his decisions ruined the game. and when you look at it, those decisions weren't totally justified in that they weren't clear cut red card cases like elbowing, deliberate handballs in the box, last defender bringing down the attacker cases. they could have been handled with more discretion to preserve the contest, because they fall under the grey area.

i hope he is still alive.

on a more positive note, we have signed manuel fernandes. that is a good signing. i would pair him up with albelda in place of baraja. baraja was great under benitez. but he can't do the job for us anymore. not at the top level.

now, we must vent our frustation all on elfsborg.

and to miss joaquin and villa for at least the next game at least is crap because of the reasons they got sent off for. and it is immature on their parts, but the referee shouldn't have shown the red. if you look back on it, of our 4 star players, other than the injured(again) vicente, only david silva did not get himself into trouble with the referee.

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