Yes and no

yes

The Fifa directives for this tournament are severe. Apart from the usual rules, the refs must show red for tackles from behind, and yellow for diving, walking away with the ball and other unsportive behaviour. At the start of the match Medina Cantalejo wasn't bothered much about the FIFA rules. It just wasn't that kind of a match. A little pulling and pushing was allowed, Lucio took off with the ball in his hands, a light but dirty tackle - the Spaniard shook it all off, and thus kept the game flowing. He is a referee who can warn players without booking, he is able to laugh things off, use his charm. That's good.

no

Both Brazilians Lucio and Juan kicked a player from behind, in all other matches during the 2006 World Cup finals they would have been sent off. Medina Cantalejo didn'even book Lucio. Maybe he should have, allthough the French players (Henry, Vieira) did'n t seem to be hurt very much.

more no

With Medina Cantalejo, pulling someone's shirt get's you the same punishment (yellow) as kicking him from behind. And at the end of the second half he started refereeing like all bad referees during this tournament: yellow for a little push, yellow for a useless hands ball, yellow for whatever little skirmish that's bound to happen when one team just can't seem to score. And Medina Cantalejo and his assistants were three times wrong about a corner kick.

brazil

The Brazilian coach is a coward. In 2005 the national team won the Confederation's Cup without Cavu and Roberto Carlos. Those two are has-beens, once they were fantastic but there is a time even a fantastic player should stop. Poor Cavu, he didn't do a thing right. Don't tell me there aren't any better players in Brazil. The Brazilians lost because of their coach