>>d) He probably *would* have gotten away with it if rules had been strictly followed, as no referee did call it right after happening! The call happened later, and some suspect it was made after watching a rerun, which is against the rules for referee decision AFAIK.
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>>The checks and balances of football have a large dosage of random elements, which can decide the game if the teams are almost equal as the last 4 were. Assuming a strategically taunted ZZ and breaking the referee rules by watching a rerun after the fact, I don't know which decision would have been better.
>
>You could be right. I don't know exactly how the play was called. I do know it took a few minutes. What I don't know is whether it was called after watching a re-run, or if it was eventually called from the sideline, or whatever. It was called though, and admittedly, I'm not real clear on all the soccer rules, but in the context of most other professional contact sports, I don't recall anyone getting a penalty for insulting an apponent.

My line of reasoning is: IF any referee had seen it directly it would have been called within a second (or three if the whistle had fallen out of his mouth because he was surprized) but not the seemingly endless time after it had been shown on tv. What could have taken the referees that long given the weight and clearness of the action ? Even if only the fourth ref saw it ? There are at least *some* press articles stating that the referees came to the decision after being told by the keeper/other players, some even mentioning both trainers saw the fourth ref watching reruns. But is the press always right <g> ?

Personally I *believe* that at least one ref saw a re-run and they decided to punish ZZ because it

a) was an assault so evident that letting it pass because no ref saw it directly would poison the last 10 minutes opening the scene to another brawl like the one between the dutch and portugese players
b) would put the red card for the english player from the same referee even more on discussion
c) make a possible win for france later on questionable, since a heavy foul seen by millions clearly on TV and a few in the stadium was not punished

But we will never know and it is over...

regards

thomas