The Pain Of Defeat... Especially When It Was 10 Against 12
Thursday, May 18, 2006
The pain of losing the one match we have wanted to win more than any other...It would have hurt less if Arsenal deserved to lose but playing 10 aginst 12(11 Barca players and the referee), I'm sure none of us Arsenal fans were already celebrating before barcelona scored. I'll talk about a few points:
Lehmann Sending Off
I have to say, until now I still cannot see the replay of the through ball to Eto'o, I still dont know whether he was offside or not. Now, when Lehmann pulled down Eto'o there was no doubt that he got none of the ball and got a lot of Eto'o, the ball that falls to Giuly and he taps the ball into the back of the net. The referee decided not to give the goal instead he sent off Lehmann and gave a freekick when Lehmann brought down Eto'o. First of all, in the rule book it states that if a player or goalkeeper commits a foul and denies the opposition a goal-scoring chance, which Lehmann did, the player should be sent off. But the problem is that, its a final, and sending off a player 17 minutes into the game is spoiling the game for everyone and eventhough im an Arsenal fan, I think the ref should have given the goal and maybve give Lehmann a yellow card. I also think that Arsenal who have equalised because Arsenal, up to that point were in full control of the game. So, it was not a mistake, but lack of common knowledge of the game. Who to blame? The ref....no one else!
Sol's Goal
Nothing wrong with the goal but the freekick that was the cause of the goal has some problems. To make it clear, Puyol did make contact but it was minimum and in reality Eboue wouldnt even have gone down but the minute Eboue felt contact the literally 'jumped' down to the ground and made it seem like it was a serious tackle. What I dont understand is, the linesman was about 5 yards away from the incident, how did he see it as a tackle, even on the tele, with a worse angle and the camera positioning being further away, you could see it was obviously a dive. Who to blame? Not the ref this time, but Eboue and the linesman.
Eto'o's Goal
Along with the many decisions that went Barcelona's way, goal goal that should'nt have been brought them level. A though ball to Larsson from Ronaldinho[i think] and Larsson push to ball in the path of Samuel Eto'o who put the ball past Almunia at his near post. When Larsson's passed to Eto'o, Eto'o was offside and therefore the goal should not have been allowed. It was obviously offside to most of us humans with eyes but it appears that the linesman who made quite a few mistakes himself that day, cost Arsenal the match.
Title Slips Away
When that goal went in, everyone knew it was over. The Arsenal players, fan and probably even the commentators knew Barcelona would finish off Arsenal, it was just a matter of when, it would either been in the remaining 13 minutes of the game or in extra-time because the Arsenal players were already looking tired, to put them through another 30 minutes of pain and suffering was just plain sad. It was not long before Belletti put Barcelona in front and ended some little bit of hope that Arsenal had. Arsenal down in confidence, tired and beaten couldnt even try and attack for the equaliser and not long later it was over.
Arsenal Football Club, Runners-Up of The UEFA Champions League 2006.
posted by highbury1913 @ 9:30 pm | |
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