I suppose it had to happen. It was just a matter of time. Unfortunately for South Africa – and Bafana Bafana – it took only two games of their participation in soccer’s world showpiece to show what the “beautiful” game is all about.
And thanks to Uruguay’s Luis Suárez to emphasise that cheating, diving, faking, pretending, posing, acting, cheating (sorry, he did cheat more than once) is what is needed to secure some sort of advantage for your side.
Forget about outplaying your opponents with good ball control, crisp passing and shots at goal. Rather fall down and get a penalty!
I don’t particularly like soccer. I respect the sport and understand some of the skill that ensures certain players are better than others. What Cristiano Ronaldo can do with a soccer ball and the way he uses his vision to create opportunities is amazing, I know.
I also know, from my days as a right-back defender in the Maties hostel leagues that you run and run and run when you chase both the ball and skilful strikers. It is a fast game.
But after seeing two-time World Cup winners, Uruguay, twice in the space of seven days and realising that their game is built around deceiving referees instead of defences, I was so happy to fall back onto some real substance with another two-time World Cup winning team.
Yes, the Springboks.
Now there is a real team to follow. A team that has proved that hard work, team work, overcoming the odds and being the best at what they do can still bring the right result. And earn the respect of their spectators.
Make no mistake, one has to acknowledge what the Soccer World Cup has done for the country. And by Bafana Bafana who are playing well above their world ranking. But when their honest, although limited, effort is being blown out of the water by someone who had no intention of playing fair, I can only shake my head.
In rugby, my friends, those guys will be sorted out. Rugby is all about contact and collisions and character and survival of the fittest.
Maybe at times, there could a feeling that someone like Richie McCaw is overstepping the line at the breakdown and that he is getting away with too much. But even if it is true, McCaw still needed to make a tackle or be close enough to a tackle ball situation to swoop.
Someone like McCaw is trying to make a play, not fall down in a heap without being touched like Suárez did last night. He is a cheat and the saddest thing is that he is allowed to get away with it at the showpiece of the sport.
It is like Ben Johnson being allowed to run in the Olympics without being tested. Sorry, but no thank you.
Not that rugby doesn’t have problems. We read and hear enough of players in the wrong and cheating (think Bloodgate) does happen from time to time, but the core values of the game still makes it something to learn from. And the way the Springboks go about their business, makes it even more enjoyable to follow.
I bumped into French coach Marc Lievremont at the France v Uruguay match in Cape Town. No, I did not have a VIP pass, we where both standing in the same area of the impressive Cape Town Stadium as paying customers.
He indicated that it was pure coincidence that the two French teams where in the same city at the same time as there is hardly any interaction between the two codes.
Fast forward to last night where the Boks traveled more than 120km from Witbank to Loftus Versfeld to watch Bafana play. They were of course invited by their soccer counterparts, as we saw Bafana at Loftus during a Super 14 match a couple of weeks back.
There might have been some posturing about it, but having being around the Boks for the last week or so, I can honestly say that their support for Bafana is genuine. They went to Loftus to support their counterparts with no strings attached.
That is why it is so disappointing that the match was dominated by one player’s theatrics and the referee’s inability to put him in his place.
Again, rugby is by no means the perfect sport, especially in South Africa. One only needs to read the posts on this site with regards to the inclusion of Chiliboy Ralepelle as starting hooker to understand that not all supporters are happy with all the players.
What they do know though, is that no Springbok will go onto any field in any competition trying to cheat or con a referee. I am sorry, but that is just not the way we play our game.
From News24
Yip, rugby is by far my preferred sport!
Go Bokke!
Hoesit KP & BGS
All i can say is 100% agreed. I was so peed off at the game, the ref, the cheating, the cry-foul -because -he -looked -at -me -askew that i almost made up my mind NOT to watch any further soccer….
but we will be loosing out on the opportunity i we don’t watch and appreciate the skills on display currently.
But sjeez louise, can’t FIFA will all their bullsh*tting get their house in order regarding this obvious cheating?
Most beautiful game my *ss!
I’d rather watch the gentleman’s game any day…..
mmm, spelling….
i meant that is “if” we don’t watch any further soccer
In no uncertain words Schalck Burger called Craig Joubert a cheat. In rugby the cheats are the referees and in soccer it is the players.
In 2007 the Poms called Stuart Dickenson also a cheat.
ag almal try ma op n manier een oor jou teenstander kry,moet dit net nie so ooglopend doen nie,ek is menige maal in n skrum gebyt aan die oor of in die nek en ek het ook n paar ouens se klokkies vir hulle gelui,maar dan moet jy kan vat wat jy uitdeel en nie n pissie wees oor dit nie
King Paul, we all have our preferences and reasons for them. I’m sure that you prefered rugby to soccer long before Suarez dived around Loftus. Maybe it started in the Koshuis league when you couldn’t quite match your opponents skill in spite of your best defensive efforts? 😉
I prefer soccer to rugby and not because of the imperfections of rugby or any sport. It is the sport that my father taught me as a laaitie; the one I played with my friends in the streets of Observatory; the sport whose heroes like the Brazilians of 1970 could be found in pictures and posters on my wall. It was the sport I lived and breathed for the first 25 years of my life.
I love rugby, but I love soccer more…
@ dWeePer:
mm, Schalck was proven wrong….. come-on dWeeper, still sore about that loss or what??
@ fender:
it’s a pity that those stars and the type of game they played are long gone….. or did they also rely on playing the ref rather than the opposition? Cause then it never was a beautiful game…..
PS, I’ve got to be careful what I say ’cause Loosehead will accuse me of getting to deep again, but let me put it to you this way: air polution can contribute to the most beautiful sunsets in Cape Town in winter. My understanding is that beauty and imperfection are not mutualy exclusive. 😉
@ fender:
hehe good one, agreed
cheers guys, will talk next week again
@ fender:
Soccer = Masochist 😈
Hmm, dont neccessarily agree. Because the rules and disciplines are different the ungentlemanly play takes different forms.
In football, a dive in the penalty area, in rugby the surreptitious foul to stop the ball coming out of the loose, or pulling someones jersey, biting someone in the loose etc.
Suffice to say that people tend to get away with what they can these days, that is why I will admire a cricketer when he walks and despise him when he stands, knowing full well he has nicked the ball whether it is to my teams benefit or not.
I dont think gentlemanly play is the fashion today and in fact people will get denigrated for it (why did you walk, why didnt you punch him when no one was watching, why didnt you kick him in the ankle when you had a legal chance to do so), does not say much for our society, or our value systems. It also goes right to the top, not only in sport. Honestly, does any of us believe everything that comes out of a politicians mouth.
Honesty, fair play and by rote, respect for others and ourselves, has gone out of the window. That is why our civilisation is in decline….no other reason.
Just on that note….I admire Gary Teichmann to this day, because when the spectators were throwing oranges at the Kiwi’s some years ago, he went and stood with his back to the crowd in front of the Kiwi team…..what a gentleman.
Well said, 4man!!
Now wasnt the USA/Slovenia clash an entertaining game, guys? US coming back from two goals down to almost sneak it at the death. All we need is for Algeria to hold England tonight to really set up the last two matches in the group.
The Nude Blacks are to meet the Welsh Leeks in a nude rugby international match organised by Otago University students to be held in the New Zealand city of Dunedin on Saturday.
The weather is, unfortunately, forecast to be fine for the annual game, organiser Ralph Davies told Thursday’s Otago Daily Times. “We prefer Antarctic southerlies and about 3 degrees just to challenge the players a bit,” he said.
Davies said the Welsh were expected to have a “formidable” team to meet local students who make up the Nude Blacks – a pun on the name of the national rugby team known as the All Blacks.
The game will precede a scheduled conventional international between the All Blacks and the visiting Wales team in the city.
The paper said hundreds turned up to watch last year’s nude rugby match at which the highlight was a clothed streaker.
17@ superBul:
Sound more like the Nude Pinks to me!
Wonder of hulle nie bang is om die verkeerde bal aan te slaan nie… hahaha
Germany striker Miroslav Klose said Friday he felt “in mourning” after he picked up a red card that forced his team to play most of the game against Serbia with 10 men.
“I’m in mourning, I only wanted to help the team,” he said. “I tried to play the ball. It wasn’t as though they were bad fouls.”
Klose was told by coach Joachim Loew to be aggressive as Germany tried to defend against Serbia from the front. But the 33-year-old, who in the past has earned a reputation for occasionally being over- committed, twice brought down Serb midfielders unnecessarily.
“I think the ref should have spoken to me and told me to calm down,” Klose said, but he shouldn’t have given me the second yellow. Football is a contact sport and you have to differentiate between a bad foul and this one.”
Team-mate Bastian Schweinsteiger agreed that the punishment was too severe for the offence, and blamed the Spanish referee, Alberto Undiano, who flashed nine yellow cards.
“If you look at all of the yellow cards, it’s a joke. Every game should have a red card then,” said Schweinsteiger. “It’s ludicrous.”
Serbia central defender Neven Subotic backed up the assertion. “I think the referee gave them out too easily,” he said. “There were many fouls that were not yellow-worthy. That he got a second yellow for that is not normal. I’m not used to punishing such harmless fouls with yellow. “
Quote of the day
“There are no easy games at a World Cup. Spain lost, France lost and Germany lost. There are no favourites any more and the old rules don’t apply. You don’t win by saying you’ll win,” Milovan Rajevac, Ghana coach, after Serbia’s victory over Germany and ahead of his team’s match against Australia.
Stat of the day
39 – Aged 39 years and 321 days, England goalkeeper David James is the oldest player ever to make his debut in the FIFA World Cup finals. The Portsmouth player, who turns 40 in August, is also the seventh oldest player to take part in the game’s showpiece event. James marked the occasion by keeping a clean sheet against Algeria.
Voice of the fans
“Even if they’d carried on playing for another three days, Germany would never have won that match. Everything went against them and they missed lots of chances, including their first World Cup finals penalty miss since 1974. Sometimes that happens, though, and it just wasn’t to be our day,” hrooney
Thanks for those interesting posts, Super. These players darem: they all try and fool the ref constantly and then when they succeed, they blame the ref for falling for their rouse!
Anyway, its the only negative amongst all the positives.
Thanks again.
@ fender:16 – Fender that was one of the better games so far. Only messed up by the ref who should have given the USA their 3rd goal. That was a goal for sure. Pity they would have been top of the pool. Too many mistakes by refs in football. Was speaking to a Dutch supporter down at the beach before they headed to the game and he said in football their should be a tmo as well. I think it is time too for football to have a tmo. Otherwise it was a great game just messed up by the ref not allowing the USA that last goal which was a goal.
Users Online
Total 119 users including 0 member, 119 guests, 0 bot online
Most users ever online were 3735, on 31 August 2022 @ 6:23 pm
No Counter as from 31 October 2009: 39,496,970 Page Impressions
_