Today's most interesting game was Germany - Portugal, which
Germany won 4-0. At the end of the game, Portugal’s coach,
Paulo Bento, questioned the integrity of the referee, Milorad Mazic, and
called him 'biased'.
The truth is that Mazic is just following a
long-standing tradition, according to which, whenever a former
World Champion plays a first-round game against a team which has never won a World Cup, it is
entitled to a dubious penalty ruling. Don't believe it?
Look at the evidence: Brazil, Spain, Uruguay, and France, all of them former champions, were awarded dubious penalty kicks under this rule. So far, Argentina was the only exception (but that's because they wisely chose to save their penalty for a later game). Notice that for England and Italy, also former champions, the rule didn't apply, as they played against each other.
Having said that,
referee Milorad Mazic exhibited considerable bias when he
single-handedly injured two of Portugal's players, and unjustly
sent off well-meaning Pepe with a red card.
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| Picture showing Pepe, who is gently brushing his head against Müller while inquiring about the German player's wellbeing |
Today was also the
first tie in the World Cup:
Iran 0 - Nigeria 0. The other game was
Ghana 1 - USA 2. As usual, the updated standings can be found
here.
