Alhaji Righteous De Ambitious: World Cup 2006 Blog

Saturday, April 11, 2009

World Cup 2006 Blog

Link to World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010

Posted: 10 Apr 2009 02:12 PM PDT

There’s been a lot of oddball fallout from last week’s World Cup qualifiers. We didn’t cover these stories when they broke, but figured it would make a nice weird Friday afternoon roundup for anyone who hasn’t already seen these stories somewhere else. How weird are we talking? How about laser beams, poisoned food and half of a starting XI being forcibly retired from international football.

First of all, FIFA has opened an investigation into Greece’s important 2-1 win over Israel in Heraklion. The win put Greece on top of UEFA Qualifying Group 2, but it’s alleged that Greek fans were distracting Israel keeper Dudu Aouate by flashing infra-red lasers in his eyes.

“In the first half I was being blinded and I alerted the referee,” Aouate told Israeli army radio. “In the second half they (the fans with the laser) moved from one end of the stadium to the other so that they could continue to blind me.”

Greece has already been warned by FIFA after Greek fans pulled the same trick against Switzerland back in October 2008. The (alleged) repeat offence will likely have consequences, which could mean future home games being played behind closed doors or maybe even point deductions.

And honestly, that wouldn’t be the worst thing. I know fans are supposed to be the 12th man and all, but I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to try and burn the retinas out of opposition players heads.

Elsewhere, North Korea didn’t take their defeat to South Korea too gracefully.

The North actually had a good reason to be upset. Jong Tae Se’s 47th minute header (1:40 in the above video) wasn’t given, even thought it may have crossed the line, and then South Korea won the important qualifier 1-0 with an 86th minute free kick.

But rather than bitch about the ball crossing the line, North Korea took it up a notch and claimed they’d been poisoned. Their statement read:

“It was beyond all doubt that the incident was a product of a deliberate act perpetrated by adulterated foodstuff as [the players] could not get up all of a sudden just before the match.”

They’re having trouble proving that claim though, since North Korea were in charge of their own accommodation and eating arrangements, so South Korea probably don’t have too much to worry about.

As it stands, both Koreas should make it World Cup 2010. Hold on to your hats if they somehow wind up playing each other.

Last but not least, it’s all gone a bit wrong for the Czech Republic who decided that if they can’t qualify for World Cup 2010, they could at least beat Scotland in the “who can end the most international careers at once” contest. As well as firing coach Petr Rada due to poor results (Czech Rep are fourth in Group 3) the Czech FA said it had banned six players from the national team “indefinitely” for partying like it was 1999 after the big Slovakia game (which they lost 2-1, by the way).

And these weren’t just any players. The now unselectable six are Milan Baros, Martin Fenin, Vaclav Sverkos, Radoslav Kovac, Marek Matejovsky and defender Tomas Ujfalusi. The good news is that those six can now meet up and party every international weekend.