This was on Sunday in the 2. Bundesliga Mainz vs. St. Pauli.



Sweatsock should pull this off!

Very smug look on his face considering he gave a guy a yellow card for hitting another guy with a football and another a yellow for being hit with said football

I think the technical term is diving.

Big Dave wrote:I think the technical term is diving.

Man U fans call it "Ronaldo Brilliance"

That's fantastic!

Well the ref has been cut from the next few games.
Reason: The referee should leave the show to the players.

Just want to know Sweatsocks opinion on it.

Video's dead now. What happened?

Copyright claim.

No, I meant what would I have seen had the video played?

This

Thanks. Booking the guy on the deck for diving, fair one. Assuming the guy that kicked it was taking a free kick, then I don't see it was a booking. It really gets on my tits the way players stand in front of a free kick these days to stop it being taken quickly. Personally I'd have liked to see the guy on the deck booked twice. Once for obstructing a free kick, once for diving.

Shaunj4 wrote:Copyright claim.

Personally I'd have binned the guy who takes the free-kick. He delibrately kicks the ball at the opponent, therefor violent conduct. Even if he's taking the free-kick legally he's still delibrately trying to hurt the guy in front of it so again, violent conduct. Also if the guys does want to take the free-kick quickly and it hits an opponent who isn't 10 yards away then technically it's play on, the opponent hasn;t commited an offence.

I actually know a guy who got marked down by an observer last season for not showing red for something similar.

Ok, maybe that case in particular was a bad example, but I remember a similar incident at St James's a couple of years ago when Arsenal were visiting. Arsenal had a free kick around the halfway line, Laurent Robert stood over the ball immediately after the foul to stop the kick being taken (which personally I really don't like about the game, regardless of who's involved), Bergkamp takes the free kick, but kicks it against Robert. Ref books Robert for it, which happens to be his 2nd yellow.

I didn't like the fact that Robert (or anyone else) stands over the ball, but Bergkamp deliberately played it against him.

It depends on the intent though. If the intent was just to knock the ball off him to show the ref he was too close then it wouldn't warrant a card for the kicker. It also depends on if a player delibrately stays stationary simply to stop the kick being taken after being told to move by the ref, that's a caution. If the player just hits the ball off him and he hasn't delibrately impeded the kick then it's play on.

Know it's not down to the ref's, but I'd really like to see this standing over the ball crap stamped out. You are defending a free kick, because someone on your team committed a foul. If the attacking team is ready to take it, then you should have got your defence set sooner. Obviously if the ref's measuring a distance, the wait for the whistle, but the defending team shouldn't have any right to delay a free kick being launched up the park IMO.