Monday, July 03, 2006

Knot in my stomach

The 1/2 finals rapidly approach and I have a nasty knot in my stomach. And it just got worse reading the referee for the France-Portugal match, none other than Jorge Larrionda. For those of you not steeped in refereeing stats, and why should you be. This is the same person that refereed the Italy-USA game where he dispensed red cards like they were hot cakes. He is also the ref that gave Zidane a yellow card in the Korea game when he "nudged" the Korean defender. Why this makes me nervous is that there are many crucial players on both sides that are under threat of missing the next game if they get a yellow.

For Portugal:
Maniche, Nuno Valente, Ricardo Carvalho, Ricardo and Luis Figo
For France:
Franck Ribery, Patrick Vieira, Zinedine Zidane, Louis Saha, Willy Sagnol and Lilian Thuram

A frightening list of possible absentees. What really scares me is with Vieira's manner of playing he is at great risk during this game against a ref that has shown to be card happy (granted no where as bad as the ref that officiated the Portugal-Holland match) And with Portugal's propensity to dive, the cards might go flying....that knot gets tighter.....

1 comment:

GFC said...

My point exactly!