Happy birthday

Control with cards

Two yellows were very harsh, Benquerenca enjoyed being in focus. The other 8 yellows however were just ok. The question is whether that is a style Elleray likes to see, to my mind, it is not. He showed again that he is incapable of leading a match which was far away from being unfair without showing an outstanding amount of cards. Is that what we want? Concerning the cards: in my opinion, dive of Ribery correctly seen, but what about the first card to Badstuber? If there is a contact, yes, tactical foul, but there was no contact. Such a card (in minute 5), has an impact on the defender's behaviour in the whole match.

Penalty situations

It is a bit paradoxical. Bayern Munchen are often said to be preferred by referees in Bundesliga, and also in CL, they had much, much luck. Again, they actually commited a foul (handball by Schweinsteiger) which is clearly a penalty, one could then even wonder whether he must be dismissed with his second yellow. The penalty he gave was in my opinion wrong, but that was not his mistake, ADD-ASS-REF 1 Artur Soares did not evaluate that correctly. A hard decision, thank Godness, Gomez was too lazy..or as the stupid German commentator said, he was influenced by a laser-pointer..no, that was not the reason. Yes yes, the thing with the "now we see more", one has to protect Collina, he did not say that they see more correctly.. Benquerenca's overall perfomance was not that bad, he missed some fouls, cards can be justified; but again..I am not content with a referee who enjoys showing cards, which is already indicated by the way he holds the card. Proenca is my favourite for Euro 2012.