Food for thought

Like four years ago, Italy did not advance into the second stage. Italy was eliminated today after losing 0-1 against Uruguay. During the game, there was some controversy because one of Uruguay's players, Suarez, bit Italian defender Chiellini. As with Pepe before, this whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

True, Suarez likes to snack on rivals during matches. Yes, this practice is currently frowned upon. But it doesn't have to be this way. Maybe Suarez is simply ahead of his time. Why are there rules against chewing off body parts of rivals anyway? Isn't this an arbitrary limitation of feeding habits? It is possible to envision a future in which FIFA puts nutritional needs before physical integrity, and in which players are allowed to eat parts of opponents during the game. FIFA has made stranger decisions in the past.

But even under the current restrictive in-game feeding rules, it is obvious that Chiellini is to be blamed for what happened. On Chiellini's personal webpage, www.chiellini.net, he openly advertises himself as food. He promotes his freshness and deliciousness and exaggeratedly calls himself "un mondo di golosità" (a world of delicacies). He clearly lured Suarez into taking a bite.

Chiellini: fresh and delicious. Who wouldn't bite into that?

In the other group, Greece scored a last-minute goal and managed to squeeze into the second round. This shook up the Bolão a bit, but not much. Look at the standings here.

Tradition

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.

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.