"The Aussies Was Robbed!" - reports Los Angeles Times
Grahame L. Jones covering the World Cup for the LA Times has a juicy conspiracy theory about Australia's devastating loss to Italy this past week.
Italy was sacrificed by FIFA in 2002 to keep South Korea (host country) in the running. This was done by a series of ambiguous calls by the referees. This year, it's payback time: what the Italians suffered in 2002 had to be redeemed at the expense of the Australians, a team with fewer fans in attendance at the German tournament and a newcomer in international soccer.
Jones says to watch for Australia to cash in its chips in 2010 in South Africa, when the antipodeans will want revenge for their being cast out of contention by a very obviously trumped up call for a penalty kick when Australia's defender slides into Grosso, but doesn't make contact with him at all in the replay. Totti makes the penalty kick and at the 95th, Australia has no time to reply, and suddenly, you've got a lot of happy Italian fans buying tickets and booking rooms for their showdown against Ukraine.
What this does to my theory of soccer as an allegory of class struggle might go like this -- the fairness in all struggle is just an illusion, -- what "players" or adversaries are rewarded for is persistence and a non-hysterical acceptance of injustice in the guise of good sportsmanship. Thus are the unwritten rules always more important than the written ones.
Italy was sacrificed by FIFA in 2002 to keep South Korea (host country) in the running. This was done by a series of ambiguous calls by the referees. This year, it's payback time: what the Italians suffered in 2002 had to be redeemed at the expense of the Australians, a team with fewer fans in attendance at the German tournament and a newcomer in international soccer.
Jones says to watch for Australia to cash in its chips in 2010 in South Africa, when the antipodeans will want revenge for their being cast out of contention by a very obviously trumped up call for a penalty kick when Australia's defender slides into Grosso, but doesn't make contact with him at all in the replay. Totti makes the penalty kick and at the 95th, Australia has no time to reply, and suddenly, you've got a lot of happy Italian fans buying tickets and booking rooms for their showdown against Ukraine.
What this does to my theory of soccer as an allegory of class struggle might go like this -- the fairness in all struggle is just an illusion, -- what "players" or adversaries are rewarded for is persistence and a non-hysterical acceptance of injustice in the guise of good sportsmanship. Thus are the unwritten rules always more important than the written ones.
1 Comments:
I agree that the penalty kick called against Australia was a total dive by the Italian player.
However, the LA Times' Grahame Jones is notorious for being a nut.
Jones watches a lot of soccer, writes well, and due to his British accent, can come across as some sort of authority on soccer.
But he's an angry, middle-aged guy, and he rarely provides any insight which makes you say, "Hey, that's a great point."
Basically, he's one of those snobby British people who think that the rest of the world is back-asswards.
Besides, if he really believes it's so "obvious" that there's a conspiracy by FIFA to advance Italy deep into the Cup, why didn't he mention it in the first round when Italy got beneficial officiating decisions vs. Ghana & USA ?
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