Really didn't think that was a penalty. The spanish media are claiming it was, but it would have been extremely soft. Still Webb was very poor in reffing fouls, both teams players went down easily at times and he seemed to blow a freekick on every occassion.
The Dutch did some pretty nasty fouls in the first half. One by that prick Van Bommel which he at least got a yellow, and another by Sneijder, which I thought was the worst challenge of the game, just near halftime, although he somehow escaped a yellow card for that in a very card happy game. De Jong's kick to Alonso's chest was also very reckless. While I wouldn't necessarily agree, certain types of refs could have easily handed red cards out for all three challenges.
In the second half Robben was definitely man-handled by Puyol when he looked like breaking through for a chance. He was entitled to go down, and in that instance you do start thinking red card, although the presence of a second defender nearby might have spared Puyol. Unfortunately for Robben he stayed on his feet, but given his comical dive inside the box when the chance broke down, I'm thinking he might have withstood Puyol's challenge because he wasn't in the penalty area yet, and it looked like it backfired.
Moffo, You've made it clear on several occassions how much you hated this World Cup. I don't think it reached any great heights, but I still enjoyed it. My first World Cup was 98 and the one I've enjoyed the least is 06. Even weighing in Australia's games, which were all thoroughly entertaining and brought me so much joy, I got quite bored of that tournament. Most games were just really uninspiring to me. I think what I disliked about 06 was so many European teams making the second round when a fair few of them were actually dud teams like Switzerland and the Ukraine. With the European homeground boost gone, we got to see more innovative and attacking teams from other confederations get through ahead of the dull Euro teams so I was glad about that.
It's strange, I would say the three Euros from 2000 to 2008 were all much more entertaining tournaments than any of the World Cups I've followed. In those games the Euro teams (with the notable exception of Greece 04) always seem to bring a lot of entertainment, but when they reach the World Cup a lot of the Euro teams become really boring. Teams like Chile, Uruguay, Korea, Japan, Mexico were all very entertainting to watch this tournament. But stage this in Europe and teams like Denmark, the Swiss, Greece, and France find ways to finish ahead of them with the dour football they played.
