Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Supposedly cultural hooligans

Watched the Man Utd Lille match last night.

Very poor game won by a piece of quick thinking by Giggs. Unfortunately it seems that most French football players and their manager do not know the laws of football. The quickly taken free kick is something you see week in week out in the EPL, the ref asks, and moves away from the ball and its up to the team that committed the offence to keep their eyes on what is happening, if they are looking at their goalkeeper then tough luck! As for Puels comments that Giggs should have been booked or sent off then yes if the player had said he will wait for the whistle and takes it quickly, I have seen that happen but not if he says I'll have a quickie!

As for walking off the pitch to protest if thats what typically happens in France than maybe UEFA should be considering whether French Football should be in Europe at all as they appear to play to a different set of rules.

Typical French, can't stand being beaten, again and again and again by the English. What a bunch of cry babies.

As for the problems in the crowd, pictures of old ladies and kids being carried out of a prison cage, now banned in the UK of course, as a result of tear gas being used on fans who appeared to being crushed, good on you you French morons, way to manage a situation properly. It looked like Hillsborough was about to start all over again.

And then there were the missiles being thrown on to the pitch by the French "Supporters". How sad is that, this again shows the complete inability of the French to police things properly.

IN short it looks like the French Riot Police were itching for a fight, it looks like they scored an own goal though and should have targeted the home fans and the stewards who were responsible for the problems.

It will be interesting to see UEFA's response to this. I am half expecting Man Utd to be punished more severely than Lille actually and it would not surprise me if UEFA somehow convince themselves that the referee made a technical mistake and order the game relayed. Just remember what happened between Bahrain and another Asian team before last years World Cup when Bahrain claimed the referee should not have awarded a penalty and forced the game to be replayed. Why the cynicisms you ask, well Platini is the new boss of UEFA and he will of course support the French teams in the same way Splatter supports anyone who is not Turkish or English.

Lets face it UEFA have been silent so far on the trouble in Italy but whenever there is problems in Turkey or UK they are very quick to talk about bans etc. The only country to have been banned from European competition are English teams after Heysel , and Feyernoord, and yet it seems that other countries can kill, maim and cause general chaos without sanction. I expect almost nothing to be done to Lille even though they should be kicked from the competition. Lets face it of Turkey are banned from home games for 6 matches after the Swiss match then what should be Lille's sanction?

1 comment:

Eski Kanka Jim said...

Agreed agreed agreed. Let's watch for further developments.

While you were watching the rioting in Lille, I was watching Celtic huff and puff against Milan last night. I had the distinct impression that Celtic were in awe of their opponents. I wonder why ?

Hopefully Mr Strachan can convince the Celtic players that they can WIN this match in Italy ! Saldir Saldir Saldir !