Manchester Utd 1-2 Real Madrid (aggregate 2-3)

UEFA Champions League*, Old Trafford, 5/3/13

This game, of course, hinged on the sending off. Up to that point United had been marginally the better, certainly David De Gea in United’s goal had fewer saves to make. Actually, even afterwards Diego Lopez in Real’s goal made more saves but Real were in the lead by then and not pushing forward so much. They could even have afforded to lose a goal.

It looked to me like Nani had tried to get the ball, there was no intent to foul – but intent does not come into the law. As Roy Keane argued in the post match discussion Nani’s foot was raised, ergo it was dangerous, worthy of a red card.

This immediately invites a question.

Why, then, when a player takes down any high ball (or indeed executes a bicycle kick) is it not dangerous play? His foot is at least at chest height, as Nani’s was. Are such instances of control of a high ball now all to be banished? In which case Brian Prunty’s much You-Tubed (and sublime) opener for Dumbarton against Livingston a few weeks ago would have been chalked off as dangerous. Should it also have been accorded a red card?

The only difference is the possible nearby presence of another player. But Nani wasn’t aware (till too late) there was a player coming in, he was looking at the flight of the ball. Roy Keane suggested he should be alive to such a possibility, he must expect a challenge. This, though, would also apply to any attempt to play a high ball as above.

Surely, equally, a player is entitled to attempt to control, or pass, the ball in the most effective way?

Nani’s control of the ball arguably wasn’t dangerous or reckless in itself. What may have made it so was the incoming player.

The thing is; it also looked to me like the Real player was never likely to get to the ball first. He was aware of what Nani might attempt to do and yet still came in to make contact with Nani’s foot after Nani had played the ball. In other words the Real player came in late. If Nani had played the ball on the ground and then been impacted the foul would have gone the other way for a late challenge. So who was in the wrong? From one point of view the Real player deliberately ran into a foot he knew was going to be high in order to make it look like dangerous play. In other words he bought the red card. Which is a form of cheating.

The ref and assistants have only real time to make decisions. They do not have the benefit of replays. But even in real time Nani’s high foot did not seem to me to be a sending off offence. But can anyone else be entirely sure what went into the ref’s decision making processes?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this we will never know what would have happened if the red card had not been issued. Real might have scored twice anyway. But United might also have scored again, they made chances even with ten men.

Given the stories floating around about match-fixing there is now an element of doubt about such high profile matches. (And possibly low profile ones as well.) It is unfortunate that a refereeing decision appeared to be central to the outcome of this game.

In an unrelated point I thought that Ronaldo might have been just offside when the cross was hit in for Real’s second goal in that a scoring part of his body was beyond the last defender. None of the replays focused on this and it was given no analysis. Strange that.

* so-called

I’ve not posted about Euro 2012 yet because I’ve not seen many whole games.

I did catch all of the England – Ukraine game last night, though. If Ukraine had had a striker they’d have won this. England rode their luck and not just with the ball over the line incident.

I take issue with the commmentators over that. In real time I couldn’t tell if the ball was over the line or not. Even with the benefit of the replay using the along the line view I couldn’t tell that the whole ball had crossed the line when John Terry kicked it out. Neither could the fifth official be sure. And he has to be sure to give the goal. It was only when Terry was stripped from the picture and the frame was frozen that I could tell – and how was I to know what other manipulation may have been done to the image? The line official didn’t have that luxury.

Still, roll on goal line technology.

It must be said Uefa haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory over the Niklas Bendtner fine and ban for ambush marketing vivs-a-vis racist chanting and inappropriate banners.

As to possible winners; who knows?

Spain look get-at-able at the back. If it weren’t for Iker Casillas they would have been going home early: both Italy and Croatia would have beaten them. They also seem to have developed this novel way of trying to win football games. It involves not trying to score goals. (To be fair Dumbarton have been using that system for donkey’s years; but not deliberately.)

Against Croatia the Italians did that Italian thing of taking a lead and trying to hold it. The only thing is their defence isn’t good enough these days to sustain it. Had they gone for the second they might have saved themselves a fraught third game. They looked good going forward against Spain though.

Greece? Not likely, but we’ve thought that before.

Germany look impressive and Mario Gomez has morphed from being the German Luca Toni and suddenly found goal scoring form in a tournament.

Czech Republic? I doubt they’ll have enough to beat Portugal who were too fragile at the back against Denmark. But do the Portuguese have enough striking options beyond Ronaldo to get to the final?

France were shown up against Sweden and must play Spain.

England are teed up to lose to a Mario Balotelli goal. They have exceeded their usual Euro performance in getting to the quarter-final, after all.

At this stage it looks like the Germans.