One thing this World Cup and the Argentina discourse has revealed is football fans think rigging means you put the ball in the back of the net for the team you’re being claimed to support.
There are various ways a referee can influence a game to favour a team in a tournament, and if you have referee friends that are willing to be truthful to you, they’ll attest to it.
Some instances are listed below:
•Giving 50/50 fouls to a team
•Not giving obvious yellow cards so the players can keep up their aggressiveness/tackles, or if it affects the team in the next round
•Interpreting the laws of the game in ways that can favour a particular team in different scenarios
•Ki!!ing the momentum of the opposing team
•Inconsistent penalty criteria for and against the team
These and many more we’ve seen go in the favour of the Argentina side in the last two world cups, and it doesn’t help that the FIFA president has publicly made statements that depicts a soft spot for the team getting these favors, including the leadership saying it would be an honor for Messi to win the World Cup in Qatar.
•The penalty against Poland (absurd).
•The Messi handball against Netherlands going unpunished.
•The Argentine player smashing the ball into the Netherlands bench not sent off
•Di Maria dived and got a pk, but Thuram got a yellow in the same match for same reason (Dybala and Di Maria laughed about the dive later on)
•Croatia and Netherlands felt cheated last time, Egypt feel so this time too (not a coincidence if we’re being truthful).
•Egypt being denied a VAR check for the McAllister pull, in the same game where a goal was canceled for same reason (they didn’t even show the replay intentionally), just bookings for the Egypt bench.
Many more in-game moments that can be pointed out too.
This is the world stage, not the NPFL, no referee will boldly make decisions that are blatantly biased all through the 90 mins, but there are a million other decisions that can determine the outcome of a game, and it’ll be unfair or untruthful to say we’ve not seen that happen for Argentina.
Everybody complaining can’t be Ronaldo fans, let’s stop gaslighting people.
Not just Balogun & Ronaldo… FIFA also decided Inter Miami were invited to the inaugural Club World Cup on rather tenuous grounds, seemingly purely on the basis of Messi’s economic benefits.
Not at all unsurprising that people would have similar suspicions here! A real shame.
Atp this is the things we like to take out of WCs; “only side never to lose to Germany in 2014”; “only side not to concede to England”. Tokenism dey sweet we pass anything 🤣🤣🤣
he's truly not the player he was... the cristiano ronaldo we know would have looked straight into your eyes and tell you he'd score!
what a time, what an era ❤️
👨🏾🍳🇬🇭⚽️: We all understand Semenyo’s frustration a little better now.
Imagine spending your club season linking up with a striker like Haaland, then reporting for national team duty and having to link up with a Jordan Ayew.
If you’re expected to create, press, carry the ball, and still finish… frustration is inevitable.
Oscar Bobb simply makes Norway more dangerous in possession. His passing techniques, his pass timing and he can even create separation from his opposition full-back with dribbling.