We Blame You Referee!!!

The Soccer Squirrel apologises to all loyal readers for the lack of coverage over the last week. One half of the Soccer Squirrel had indeed packed-up his while the other half found typing game previews and reports by mashing litre steins against his keyboard far too random.

Apologies to all.

So what did you miss out on?

For those of you who rely solely on the Soccer Squirrel for their Socceroos news here it is: the Aussies are out. Italy’s dubious 94th minute penalty in the round of 16 match sealed Australia’s fate and we exited with our heads held high and our blaming fingers pointed squarely at the referees.

In fact, we at the Soccer Squirrel would like to lay the blame for Australia’s exit squarely at the feet of the referees. Referees who we feel have given Australia a very tough time in this tournament. We believe this is not a case of a victim complex on our behalf, but what we call “football reputation-profiling”.

“Australia is overly physical” our opponents would have you believe.

Before the tournament Japan and Holland fed FIFA, the media, and the referees propaganda about our supposedly rough style of play, Brazil played up to it, while Croatia seemed to rely on a series of poor referring decisions to hold Australia to draw. None of this however was as poor as the decision to reward the theatrics of an Italian defender with a 94th minute penalty in a game which Australia had dominated for long periods of time.

The fact that this player took an extra step before deciding to launch himself over Lucas Neil’s body betrays his intention to cheat/

Australia was profiled as an overly physical combatant before the World Cup had even started. Such a reputation has proved to be unfounded as Australia has played honest, clean and attacking football all tournament, yet the damage had been done as referees have fallen to favour the more experienced football nations by giving household names the benefit of the doubt when a decision needs to be made.

The refereeing standard in this World Cup has been widely acknowledged as poor. Over officious referees looking to stamp any physical contact out of the game have altered the face of this World Cup. No wonder the divers – the greatest shamers of the beautiful game- are flourishing.

Australia is not the only victim. The USA received two undeserved red cards against the Italians when the referee had a brain explosion. Ghana has been robbed of its best player, Michael Essien, for the match against Brazil due to tackle that never was- he got to the ball first and there was no foul, let alone a yellow card. Sweden’s Teddy Lucic was sent off for the slightest of shirt pulls due to the theatrics of Germany’s Miroslav Klose, which killed any chance Sweden had of coming back from 2 goals down. These are just some of the incidents that spring immediately to mind.

The Soccer Squirrel’s anger at the referees in this tournament knows no bounds at the moment and it is a miracle that our boys progressed past the group stage given the maltreatment of the Socceroos borne from the blatantly racist football-reputation profiling.

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Apologies again for the lack of recent articles and there may be some more considered comment on this page soon when the Squirrel’s nuts have cooled.

THE SOCCER SQUIRREL WOULD LIKE TO CONGRATULATE OUR WONDERFUL SOCCEROOS- YOU DID US PROUD AND WE LOVE YOU ALL.