OK, I’ll admit it, my quarter final predictions were a disaster. Brazil and Argentina lost, Spain scraped through and Uruguay needed a handball, a penalty miss and penalties! Oh dear. Well, I must be due for a little form, so my predictions for the semi finals are… the Netherlands and Germany to win. Both winning 2-1. Yes, I’m putting my heart and soul in to this…
A point about the Suarez handball, by the way. It’s only the British who seem to care that he handled the ball (aside from Africa, obviously). Put simply, people need to get over it. Sport is played by rules, yes, but it is also played by the consequences of breaking them. Football is not a gentleman’s game like cricket or golf. Only in Britain do people fail to realise this, and it is a reason why British teams fail so much. In other countries, what we call “cheating” is considered “strategy”. And a handball on the line in the final seconds isn’t in the same league as doping either. Sportsmen like to win. Sport is not about taking part, it’s simply about who wins. The rules – and the consequences of breaking the rules – are universal. The winner is the most effective at synthesising the two.
If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen. If I’d have been in Suarez’s boots, I’d have done the exact same thing, although I may have celebrated the missed penalty with more of a sly smile than jumping up and down!
Firstly, predictions. You’re wrong. Well, partly. Netherlands will get through, although I suspect it’ll be more like 1-0 than 2-1. Spain will beat Germany, though.
As for the handball, I refuse to accept that we should just accept cheating, in any format, in any sport. Yes, the point of competing is to win. But if that winning is at the cost of the rules of the game, then it is no victory at all. I think it’s sad that, in a situation like that of Ghana, that the referee can’t award a ‘penalty goal’ like in rugby, but rather only a penalty which can be (and was) missed, but I accept that the rules indicate a penalty.
Where cheating becomes regarded as strategy, we are essentially saying that rulebreaking is part of the game, and that we are only worried about whether we get caught. I deplore this, and wish it had no part in our game.
As do I, but the rules don’t do anything to put people off handling the ball on the goal line. Allow referees to be able to give penalty goals and the situation goes away, but whilst that isn’t in the ruless, I find it hard to blamer anyone for not exploiting that.