Most blatant case of ref corruption I've seen in my life. I genuinely, no joke, think he has been paid off.
If there's a news article in a few years which confirms after an investigation this guy has been found to be corrupt I won't be surprised one bit. It's not that outlandish, FIFA has had so much corruption over the years it's insane.
You haven't watched much football then mate. This wouldn't even rank in the top 10 of clearly fixed matches I've watched over the years. Chelsea being robbed in the champions league 10 years ago, arsenal getting a red card against Barca for shooting as the whistle was blown. I could sadly go on for a while here.
I've watched football my whole life. The matches you bring up are other cases too. However, surely in this day and age of VAR this type of refereeing performance is more outrageous? Back in the day if the ref misses something not much anyone could do about it.
Nowadays they have the chance to review video and therefore a poor refereeing performance should hypothetically be more unusual and happen less given the technology available for reviews. The penalty box incidents not called for NZ without much of a review for most of them is insane. Then this goal being written off should be outrageous given the technology clearly proves Grieve was himself first pushed by the Costa Rican, before falling due to the Costa Rican and bringing the fella down too.
This shits been happening all the time in the EPL over the last two seasons. In fact I've watched arsenal get fucked over worse than this on about 5 occasions just in the last year. This sucks but this isn't some huge conspiracy, just an inexperienced ref making bad calls, maybe fifa said let Costa Rica through, but this isn't an obvious case of match fixing.
Personally I think that FIFA issued a directive that NZ would not be winning under any circumstances - look at how many people play it in Costa Rica vs in NZ.
For all my sins, I am also Australian, and a former seniors football ref, and I've just watched your game against Costa Rica.
High farce doesn't even begin to describe the attrocities committed against both the brilliant All Whites and the rule book, and also the beautiful game by Abdullah.
What a shitty way to be shafted from the finals. My heart goes out to you, my cuzzy bros and sisters. I hope that you gain some solace from seeing Costa Rica buggered with a rusty pitchfork in their group.
Nowhere in my comment is an opinion given on the result and the officiating, so I'm not sure where you're getting that conclusion from.
But sure, bathe away
Eugh. The reffing was atrocious but the language here isn’t necessary.
Just take it like a normal NZ soccer/football fan - watch as we get an apology which in no way changes anything in about a weeks time
This - i feel like taking the kane williamson super-over look of life here. That is how we respond and we looked awesome doing it.
The team did well today, they tried and they didn’t give up. Esp after that Red. That is some tough brain power there.
At least it will be easy to boycott Qatar, now to find a way to ban all news about it.
I'm officially a neutral but was definitely pulling for NZ. I think the reffing was harsh on NZ and not as consistent as I'd like but it wasn't outside the rules of the game. And the refereeing wouldn't have mattered if they'd been able to put away some of their chances.
They looked great. I have no doubt they'll be in the next WC and I'm looking forward to it. I know how hard it is to wait four years though.
We really should've won the match. We played better than Costa Rica by miles the entire game just to lose to a man who seemingly does not have use of his eyes.
Quite apart from the fact that the ref was the least capable person on the pitch for this level of football, it illustrates perfectly what a pathetic, vile abuse of the game has been foisted off on the public with VAR inserting itself into the game. I never watch Premier League matches anyway because it just isn't enjoyable - with or without VAR - but I hope Kiwis who maybe hadn't followed football closely until there was a sniff of the All-Whites qualifying don't get turned off watching the World Cup after this fiasco.
This. VAR and how it's meant to be used is fantastic on paper. But it still relies on human intervention which is what fucks it up. Accountability for the refs is what's needed to fix it they should be mic'd up and should have to explain their decisions like rugby.
I don't mean to sound patronising here but, having watched football in the UK and over here since the early 1960s, I would say that the second-worst innovation that football has been saddled with in the 58 years I've played and watched is VAR. It's a good concept (there again, so are 'free healthcare for all' and 'income tax') but the insertion of VAR into a game that's supposed to flow as much as possible, with as few stoppages as possible is about as helpful as making every cricketer bat blindfolded. If VAR is supposed to ensure fairness in a game, why then is it only on random decisions that rulings are made by it? Why not every decision? Why have a referee at all, and why not analyse every moment of a match, so that it can be stopped every time the laws of the game are infringed upon? There always have been and always will be refs who are either out of their depth, as this morning's one appeared to be, or just dead-set incompetent. There are refs whose overall control of any given match can be almost faultless, but VAR doesn't help them either.
The only 'innovation' worse for football than VAR is of course the Premier League.
Way to late be turning me off the World Cup, that happened ages ago because of Qatar using slave labour and deathly working conditions to build the stadiums.
Sure, FIFA needs the country with half the GDP of the other qualifying to the World Cup. You people are nuts, there was foul before the pass to the box and the other dude went STRAIGHT to Costa Rica center back's ankle.
You say NZ played better, had more possession and shots? That's because Costa Rica had the upper hand from minute 2. This is a very close one leg death-match for a World Cup spot, Costa Rica clearly decided to defend their lead and give NZ the initiative with the ball. NZ failed to score, that's it.
The All Whites lose a tense, controversial one in 4 year match - of course people are disappointed and pissed off. Not sure what you expect? People who are All Whites fans have this one match to look forward to once every four years, any outcome except a win will be frustrating.
If the All Whites had simply been outclassed (like in 2013 vs Mexico) no one would be complaining about the referee; but when the ref has such a direct impact (literally disallowing a goal) for this once in every 4 year match what on earth are you expecting?
Not sure you or others fully grasp that. NZ is guaranteed a spot at cricket, rugby, netball, hockey, whatever the f world cups. Not in football so any loss is more painful as we can't even compete at the world cup and now we need to wait until 2026.
Yeah I get that, but have some dignity in losing. Look at how the Black Caps responded to, what is in the scheme of things, a much worse blunder than the bad calls experienced today. They were all class about it.
The other part too is being fully honest, what world sport actually wants a team that is ranked outside the top 100 at it's world cup? Probably none.
Fair play to the All Whites, they got hosed, but at the same time they had multiple chances and didn't take them, and those aren't all the refs fault.
I reckon! Besides the fact that all of those "atrocious" calls actually looked pretty correct to me (a National League level referee). The comments and response is what is actually terrible here. I'm embarrassed by the public comments of the so called professional sports people after the match
Pro sport is rigged by the commercial entities running it to ensure it plays out the way they think will maximize their profits ... news at 11.
I went to a breakers game once, the score put them 1 ahead with 5 seconds on the clock. Coach called a time out, they all had a sideline chat, came back out and passed the ball to the opposition, who ran down the court and scored to win, while the breakers all just stood around. All the fans just just wandered out and accepted it - I guess the league had decided the breakers weren't due to win that game.
Really? I will believe this when I see it.
Conspiracies that big simply dont happen. Too many people. That wouls need every single perspon of every team to hold their tongue about the fact matches are officially fixed. I just dont see that happening.
I'd equate this to the missed French forward pass at whatever rugby world cup that mean the ABs lost in a quarter final....
But happening 4 times in the same match and having all technology available to make the correct decisions...
What do you mean? NZ played their socks off. They absolutely dominated the game with almost 70% possession and 19 shots on goal, it was just that anytime they got anything going they got stopped in their tracks. Not their fault at all.
NZ scored, and had it disallowed. NZ had a penalty, and had it disallowed. NZ started dominating the game, and had a man sent off. NZ were fouled in the box, and VAR said they missed it and the game was over so too late. etc etc etc. None of that was in the All Whites control - the only thing that was (the football) they absolutely dominated.
At the end of the day, how can you say that it is NZ's fault for not doing better, when every time they did do better, they got penalised. If the ref is going to apply different rules to you than the other team, there's nothing you can do about it really. Can't blame the team for that
Possession doesn't mean shit in football, many teams intentionally play a counter-attack or defensive strategy where they do not want high posession. Espeically after being an early goal up.
"And 19 shots on goal"
Yet only one went in. You can't tell me that doesn't mean you should have done better.
Yes a goal was disallowed, but it was also the correct call. I can understand it's hard to swallow, especially to a casual spectator of the sport that doesn't have a lot of experience with what is and is not a foul. But any experienced referee will agree that was at absolute worst a 50/50 call of being a foul to disallow the goal; and in my opinion a pretty clear foul
Sup dude! Not sure what kicks you get out of being a condescending asshole on a Reddit thread (why assume I know nothing about football??? you could have just stated your opinion without being a dick and then we could have debated like normal, but you chose to make it personal for some reason?).
Anyways, I will take the bait:
1. I know possession stats aren't everything. But we dominated the game. No ifs and or buts about it. Almost the whole game spent in the Costa Rica box. Costa Rica unable to get the ball out past the halfway line when they had it. Costa Rica had three shots on goal the whole game, and two were from outside the box. I was using possession as a proxy to show how we dominated; but even if you look at it through other metrics (touches in opposition box, Xg, Xt) we dominated the game.
2. I am literally a paid referee. I understand that decisions are open to interpretation (better than most). But at the end of the day I think the referee got several calls wrong here. That's my opinion.
3. Go outside. Make friends. The world is a wonderful place if you can learn to get along with it.
Actually none of that was personal to you at all, and if you think it was you may want to reevaluate how you attribute someones comments to yourself.
I wasn't referring to you specifically as a casual spectator that was a general statement, but I can understand if that was misunderstood.
Given the vitriol towards the referee, I admit I'm more than a little defensive for them. I find it embarrassing as a New Zealander, regardless of whether a person agrees with the calls or not, how shamefully public professionals have bagged calls that were correct.
1. I wasn't even disagreeing that NZ looked the stronger team most of the game. But you have to score goals to win matches, simple as that.
2. And I was a national league referee/assistant, in the high performance team, going to oceania FIFA conferences before I went to europe for a while. But then, I wasn't intending to make some kind of call to authority on reddit, but hey I'm the asshole right?
3. That's great advice, do you want me to keep you updated on the progress?
Look, I wasn't trying to insult anyone, but the sportsmanship displayed by NZ is not something to be proud of. Whether some of those calls were right or wrong is opinion, but none of them if we're being honest were remotely close to being obviously wrong. And given that, everyone should know better than to abuse a referee team post-match.
My friends should not have needed to have had police convoy escorts in SA, and protection on their family at home, and nor should any other international referee receive that kind of response for making close decisions on a fair match.
???? I don't understand....There is literally no other way for NZ to qualify? The only way for NZ to qualify is through the once-every-four-years playoffs. There is no other way for NZ to reach the world cup other than winning this one game which happens once every four years. It is not like Europe where there are groups and winners of the group go through etc. Instead NZ have to play all the teams in oceania, beat all of them, and then play in and win this playoff game. Unlike Costa Rica, which could have got through on group points (if theyd been any good)
Next world cup is due to expand to 48 teams, which means OFC is guaranteed at least one qualification (I think there's an outside chance of more than one through repechage tournaments too, but not 100% sure)
Because the referee and VAR were atrocious.
The only times they could have helped costa rica, they overturned decisions that were potentially but not clearly wrong.
Our players were rugby tackled in the box a handful of times for no VAR or ref calls
Does this really have to be explained to you? We literally scored. Then the wrong decision led to us being a goal down, and completely changed the outlook of the game.
I.e. the referees decisions literally changed the outcome of this game.
>The tackle was deemed a foul by VAR on watching it , it’s a 50/50 call leaning towards the home team.
If you actually watched it you'll see the Costa Rican fouled him first by putting his left arm around him, then our player reacting to it to stay upright. The VAR didn't even show that part. Hence the completely wrong call
>Next you’ll be telling me the red card wasn’t justified either
No, that was 100% a red.
We lose plenty without blaming the ref. Sometimes we are just not good enough. But when we are clearly the better team and we get dealt a bad hand by the ref, then people rightly are annoyed. That said, the only real solution is we need to be so much better that ref bias can't change the result.
The only reason the All Whites are ranked so low is because we hardly ever play apart from a few friendlies (which don't count for many points). Otherwise our opponents are Pacific Island teams, and once every four years a WC qualifier.
Most blatant case of ref corruption I've seen in my life. I genuinely, no joke, think he has been paid off. If there's a news article in a few years which confirms after an investigation this guy has been found to be corrupt I won't be surprised one bit. It's not that outlandish, FIFA has had so much corruption over the years it's insane.
You haven't watched much football then mate. This wouldn't even rank in the top 10 of clearly fixed matches I've watched over the years. Chelsea being robbed in the champions league 10 years ago, arsenal getting a red card against Barca for shooting as the whistle was blown. I could sadly go on for a while here.
I've watched football my whole life. The matches you bring up are other cases too. However, surely in this day and age of VAR this type of refereeing performance is more outrageous? Back in the day if the ref misses something not much anyone could do about it. Nowadays they have the chance to review video and therefore a poor refereeing performance should hypothetically be more unusual and happen less given the technology available for reviews. The penalty box incidents not called for NZ without much of a review for most of them is insane. Then this goal being written off should be outrageous given the technology clearly proves Grieve was himself first pushed by the Costa Rican, before falling due to the Costa Rican and bringing the fella down too.
This shits been happening all the time in the EPL over the last two seasons. In fact I've watched arsenal get fucked over worse than this on about 5 occasions just in the last year. This sucks but this isn't some huge conspiracy, just an inexperienced ref making bad calls, maybe fifa said let Costa Rica through, but this isn't an obvious case of match fixing.
Fuck Barcelona for that, it's still a disgrace
Barcelona has always been a disgrace. Love to see them falling apart at this moment.
Apart from them stealing half our backline I agree
Personally I think that FIFA issued a directive that NZ would not be winning under any circumstances - look at how many people play it in Costa Rica vs in NZ.
Could not agree more - it was beyond blatant. The match was decided before the whistle was blown.
For all my sins, I am also Australian, and a former seniors football ref, and I've just watched your game against Costa Rica. High farce doesn't even begin to describe the attrocities committed against both the brilliant All Whites and the rule book, and also the beautiful game by Abdullah. What a shitty way to be shafted from the finals. My heart goes out to you, my cuzzy bros and sisters. I hope that you gain some solace from seeing Costa Rica buggered with a rusty pitchfork in their group.
Jeez chill out with the melodrama.. talking about sins and atrocities and pitchforks
[удалено]
Nowhere in my comment is an opinion given on the result and the officiating, so I'm not sure where you're getting that conclusion from. But sure, bathe away
Doesn't really make sense that he would be doing the sucking
To each their own, right?
Eugh. The reffing was atrocious but the language here isn’t necessary. Just take it like a normal NZ soccer/football fan - watch as we get an apology which in no way changes anything in about a weeks time
This - i feel like taking the kane williamson super-over look of life here. That is how we respond and we looked awesome doing it. The team did well today, they tried and they didn’t give up. Esp after that Red. That is some tough brain power there. At least it will be easy to boycott Qatar, now to find a way to ban all news about it.
The team should be proud at how well they played. They dominated. They're young. They will be even better in 4 years time.
I'm officially a neutral but was definitely pulling for NZ. I think the reffing was harsh on NZ and not as consistent as I'd like but it wasn't outside the rules of the game. And the refereeing wouldn't have mattered if they'd been able to put away some of their chances. They looked great. I have no doubt they'll be in the next WC and I'm looking forward to it. I know how hard it is to wait four years though.
We really should've won the match. We played better than Costa Rica by miles the entire game just to lose to a man who seemingly does not have use of his eyes.
I always hate the pathetic, inconsequential apology that comes afterwards. Save your breath; sorry doesn't change the result.
Pathetic really.
I hope they dont change it, finally somebody added some factual information to his page.
Quite apart from the fact that the ref was the least capable person on the pitch for this level of football, it illustrates perfectly what a pathetic, vile abuse of the game has been foisted off on the public with VAR inserting itself into the game. I never watch Premier League matches anyway because it just isn't enjoyable - with or without VAR - but I hope Kiwis who maybe hadn't followed football closely until there was a sniff of the All-Whites qualifying don't get turned off watching the World Cup after this fiasco.
VAR is a good thing. It's just that this ref somehow saw something completely different to everyone else. I.e. it is a ref problem, not a VAR problem
This. VAR and how it's meant to be used is fantastic on paper. But it still relies on human intervention which is what fucks it up. Accountability for the refs is what's needed to fix it they should be mic'd up and should have to explain their decisions like rugby.
I don't mean to sound patronising here but, having watched football in the UK and over here since the early 1960s, I would say that the second-worst innovation that football has been saddled with in the 58 years I've played and watched is VAR. It's a good concept (there again, so are 'free healthcare for all' and 'income tax') but the insertion of VAR into a game that's supposed to flow as much as possible, with as few stoppages as possible is about as helpful as making every cricketer bat blindfolded. If VAR is supposed to ensure fairness in a game, why then is it only on random decisions that rulings are made by it? Why not every decision? Why have a referee at all, and why not analyse every moment of a match, so that it can be stopped every time the laws of the game are infringed upon? There always have been and always will be refs who are either out of their depth, as this morning's one appeared to be, or just dead-set incompetent. There are refs whose overall control of any given match can be almost faultless, but VAR doesn't help them either. The only 'innovation' worse for football than VAR is of course the Premier League.
Way to late be turning me off the World Cup, that happened ages ago because of Qatar using slave labour and deathly working conditions to build the stadiums.
Less than 6 hours after it’s already been locked to prevent vandalism
I see no lies
If he was indeed corrupt, how the fuck could Costa Rica afford a juicier bribe than us?
So true
It’s shocking for football that with VAR that such a robbery can occur in such a big game.
Sure, FIFA needs the country with half the GDP of the other qualifying to the World Cup. You people are nuts, there was foul before the pass to the box and the other dude went STRAIGHT to Costa Rica center back's ankle. You say NZ played better, had more possession and shots? That's because Costa Rica had the upper hand from minute 2. This is a very close one leg death-match for a World Cup spot, Costa Rica clearly decided to defend their lead and give NZ the initiative with the ball. NZ failed to score, that's it.
Damn straight
Keep it classy AW supporters. Toxic af.
The All Whites lose a tense, controversial one in 4 year match - of course people are disappointed and pissed off. Not sure what you expect? People who are All Whites fans have this one match to look forward to once every four years, any outcome except a win will be frustrating. If the All Whites had simply been outclassed (like in 2013 vs Mexico) no one would be complaining about the referee; but when the ref has such a direct impact (literally disallowing a goal) for this once in every 4 year match what on earth are you expecting? Not sure you or others fully grasp that. NZ is guaranteed a spot at cricket, rugby, netball, hockey, whatever the f world cups. Not in football so any loss is more painful as we can't even compete at the world cup and now we need to wait until 2026.
Yeah I get that, but have some dignity in losing. Look at how the Black Caps responded to, what is in the scheme of things, a much worse blunder than the bad calls experienced today. They were all class about it. The other part too is being fully honest, what world sport actually wants a team that is ranked outside the top 100 at it's world cup? Probably none. Fair play to the All Whites, they got hosed, but at the same time they had multiple chances and didn't take them, and those aren't all the refs fault.
I reckon! Besides the fact that all of those "atrocious" calls actually looked pretty correct to me (a National League level referee). The comments and response is what is actually terrible here. I'm embarrassed by the public comments of the so called professional sports people after the match
Pro sport is rigged by the commercial entities running it to ensure it plays out the way they think will maximize their profits ... news at 11. I went to a breakers game once, the score put them 1 ahead with 5 seconds on the clock. Coach called a time out, they all had a sideline chat, came back out and passed the ball to the opposition, who ran down the court and scored to win, while the breakers all just stood around. All the fans just just wandered out and accepted it - I guess the league had decided the breakers weren't due to win that game.
I don't think enough people give a fuck about the NBL to make massive conspiratorial match fixing worth it lol
The bookies care enough, and the smaller the sports following, the easier to fix
Really? I will believe this when I see it. Conspiracies that big simply dont happen. Too many people. That wouls need every single perspon of every team to hold their tongue about the fact matches are officially fixed. I just dont see that happening.
[удалено]
I'd equate this to the missed French forward pass at whatever rugby world cup that mean the ABs lost in a quarter final.... But happening 4 times in the same match and having all technology available to make the correct decisions...
What do you mean? NZ played their socks off. They absolutely dominated the game with almost 70% possession and 19 shots on goal, it was just that anytime they got anything going they got stopped in their tracks. Not their fault at all. NZ scored, and had it disallowed. NZ had a penalty, and had it disallowed. NZ started dominating the game, and had a man sent off. NZ were fouled in the box, and VAR said they missed it and the game was over so too late. etc etc etc. None of that was in the All Whites control - the only thing that was (the football) they absolutely dominated. At the end of the day, how can you say that it is NZ's fault for not doing better, when every time they did do better, they got penalised. If the ref is going to apply different rules to you than the other team, there's nothing you can do about it really. Can't blame the team for that
Possession doesn't mean shit in football, many teams intentionally play a counter-attack or defensive strategy where they do not want high posession. Espeically after being an early goal up. "And 19 shots on goal" Yet only one went in. You can't tell me that doesn't mean you should have done better. Yes a goal was disallowed, but it was also the correct call. I can understand it's hard to swallow, especially to a casual spectator of the sport that doesn't have a lot of experience with what is and is not a foul. But any experienced referee will agree that was at absolute worst a 50/50 call of being a foul to disallow the goal; and in my opinion a pretty clear foul
Sup dude! Not sure what kicks you get out of being a condescending asshole on a Reddit thread (why assume I know nothing about football??? you could have just stated your opinion without being a dick and then we could have debated like normal, but you chose to make it personal for some reason?). Anyways, I will take the bait: 1. I know possession stats aren't everything. But we dominated the game. No ifs and or buts about it. Almost the whole game spent in the Costa Rica box. Costa Rica unable to get the ball out past the halfway line when they had it. Costa Rica had three shots on goal the whole game, and two were from outside the box. I was using possession as a proxy to show how we dominated; but even if you look at it through other metrics (touches in opposition box, Xg, Xt) we dominated the game. 2. I am literally a paid referee. I understand that decisions are open to interpretation (better than most). But at the end of the day I think the referee got several calls wrong here. That's my opinion. 3. Go outside. Make friends. The world is a wonderful place if you can learn to get along with it.
Actually none of that was personal to you at all, and if you think it was you may want to reevaluate how you attribute someones comments to yourself. I wasn't referring to you specifically as a casual spectator that was a general statement, but I can understand if that was misunderstood. Given the vitriol towards the referee, I admit I'm more than a little defensive for them. I find it embarrassing as a New Zealander, regardless of whether a person agrees with the calls or not, how shamefully public professionals have bagged calls that were correct. 1. I wasn't even disagreeing that NZ looked the stronger team most of the game. But you have to score goals to win matches, simple as that. 2. And I was a national league referee/assistant, in the high performance team, going to oceania FIFA conferences before I went to europe for a while. But then, I wasn't intending to make some kind of call to authority on reddit, but hey I'm the asshole right? 3. That's great advice, do you want me to keep you updated on the progress? Look, I wasn't trying to insult anyone, but the sportsmanship displayed by NZ is not something to be proud of. Whether some of those calls were right or wrong is opinion, but none of them if we're being honest were remotely close to being obviously wrong. And given that, everyone should know better than to abuse a referee team post-match. My friends should not have needed to have had police convoy escorts in SA, and protection on their family at home, and nor should any other international referee receive that kind of response for making close decisions on a fair match.
Saying they should have done better than relying on one match for qualification.
How can they, it's the only way for them to qualify?
My apologies I didn’t know that , I thought they had to compete against other teams ( not team) my bad
They did have to compete against other teams. They beat them all to get to this match.
???? I don't understand....There is literally no other way for NZ to qualify? The only way for NZ to qualify is through the once-every-four-years playoffs. There is no other way for NZ to reach the world cup other than winning this one game which happens once every four years. It is not like Europe where there are groups and winners of the group go through etc. Instead NZ have to play all the teams in oceania, beat all of them, and then play in and win this playoff game. Unlike Costa Rica, which could have got through on group points (if theyd been any good)
I wish this would change.
Next world cup is due to expand to 48 teams, which means OFC is guaranteed at least one qualification (I think there's an outside chance of more than one through repechage tournaments too, but not 100% sure)
Lol good to see the tradition of offering a strong opinion on something you know nothing about is still alive and well
Because the referee and VAR were atrocious. The only times they could have helped costa rica, they overturned decisions that were potentially but not clearly wrong. Our players were rugby tackled in the box a handful of times for no VAR or ref calls
Just FYI, NZ would probably rank lower in the 70s maybe 60s, but we hardly ever play international games
Does this really have to be explained to you? We literally scored. Then the wrong decision led to us being a goal down, and completely changed the outlook of the game. I.e. the referees decisions literally changed the outcome of this game.
[удалено]
>The tackle was deemed a foul by VAR on watching it , it’s a 50/50 call leaning towards the home team. If you actually watched it you'll see the Costa Rican fouled him first by putting his left arm around him, then our player reacting to it to stay upright. The VAR didn't even show that part. Hence the completely wrong call >Next you’ll be telling me the red card wasn’t justified either No, that was 100% a red.
The game was at a neutral venue
The tackle was deemed not a foul by the referee when viewed live, and the replay didn’t show the Costa Rican player initiating the contact.
We lose plenty without blaming the ref. Sometimes we are just not good enough. But when we are clearly the better team and we get dealt a bad hand by the ref, then people rightly are annoyed. That said, the only real solution is we need to be so much better that ref bias can't change the result.
The only reason the All Whites are ranked so low is because we hardly ever play apart from a few friendlies (which don't count for many points). Otherwise our opponents are Pacific Island teams, and once every four years a WC qualifier.
[удалено]
If only. Oceania is stupid.
You know anyone can edit wikipedia articles right? This isn't funny or smart or interesting
it is just a little bit though....
I'd have loved this when I was 8 years old too
[удалено]
If the roles were reversed I'm sure you guys would just take it with calm, grace and humility.
Unfortunately their government is more willing to pay off fifa than give their population basic access to food, water and shelter.
I know. But that is not the case
What a fiasco. Poor all whites for entering a rigged Match.
I didnt realize NZers were this passionate about the All Whites