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Blaming the Referee… Sometimes it is just a little too convenient.

Published by Ian John on April 2, 2010

We’ve all heard it. A team playing in a crucial game doesn’t get the result it needs. This is explained away by an irate player or manager, not through any failing on their own, some great misfortune or just the ebb and flow of football providence, but instead it is nearly always down to inept officials who make the ‘wrong’ (ie, not in the favour of the losing team) decisions.

Last night’s game between Benfica and Liverpool was a fine example of just that. The first issue of course was the booking of Luisao and the subsequent sending off of Ryan Babel. The only issue I have here, as a Liverpool fan I might add, is that some would deem Luisao’s appalling tackle on Torres, a straight red card. However some referee’s would not. It is one of those decisions, sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t. Last night, Luisao was given a yellow. I’d have preferred it to have been a red, but I can understand why it wasn’t.

However Babel has no such defence. It doesn’t matter if he was raising his hands to “shush” Luisao (if you believe that, then you are technically simple). He raised his hands and not once, but twice, pushed them into the face of the Brazilian defender. It wasn’t a slap or a punch, but putting your hands into the face of an opponent like that is a red card. It says so in the rules. Therefore Babel was right to be sent off. Just as Rafa Benitez would be right to haul him into Anfield and give him a dressing down over his utter stupidity for getting involved in something that wasn’t his business in the first place.

Now here there will be those who proclaim that he was just “sticking up for Torres” or “trying to diffuse the situation” (yeah, right, his words of consolation had the desired effect on the Brazilian spitting his venom didn’t it?) but the fact is, he chose to get involved in such a stupidly, self-absorbed way. Becoming the self-appointed administer of Liverpool justice and in doing so, got himself sent off by shoving his hands totally unnecessarily into an opposing players face. Utter rank stupidity it was and the Swedish referee was absolutely right to send him off.

Now the Torres ‘goal’. If we can complain about the decision of the officials I feel here is the only chance to make a realistic complaint about being hard done to. Kuyt however, technically, was just inches offside at the free kick. At Anfield, that would have stood I have no doubt whatsoever, but in the Stadium of Light, it didn’t. That is European football, you get some decisions and others you don’t, but if you want to observe the officials decision at the exact moment the free kick was taken, then he was spot on. Kuyt was probably twelve inches offside. But that is offside. Them’s the breaks.

Next the first penalty. It was as clear cut as any penalty I have seen this season. Insua was the wrong side of the Benfica player and just basically kicked him in the leg. The theatrical dive that followed wasn’t really needed. It was a stonewall penalty and a very well taken one by Cardozo too.

The second penalty was another of those decisions that sometimes you get and sometimes you don’t. Liverpool fans, like Bordeaux fans, will feel particularly hard done to and claim that officials have gifted the home team a penalty, but I feel there was a difference between Carragher’s handball and Chalme’s handball for Bordeaux. The Liverpool defenders arm was raised well above his head and body to block the cross a somewhat unnatural position, Chalme’s hands were much more down by his side a more natural position for a defender. Carragher was watching where the ball was going, Chalme had turned his head away from the ball in the attempt to block. That to me means Chalme’s handball was the unluckier of the two, there was clearly no intent (and that is the crucial word) on hsi behalf. Carragher’s hands were too high and it could be deemed intentionally so to block the cross. If a Portuguese defender had done the same at Anfield, we’d have all been screaming for a penalty. Some referees would give it, some would not. The Swedish official behind the goal, when not dodging exploding firecrackers loud enough to blast the wax out of his ears, gave it and, once again, I feel he had every right to. I’m sure though before the game he had hair, before those fireworks blasted it off.

I just wish Fernando Torres had buried that wonderful chance he had in the second half when clean through on goal. At 2-2, I would have gladly taken that back to Anfield.

At 2-1 though all is not lost. It will be a close encounter at Anfield but I think we can be confident of getting a result, especially against a defence that didn’t look the strongest when we tested it with 11 men. We just need our players to stop acting like idiotic babies and to concentrate on playing football as they can and Liverpool can go through. With a bit of luck of course.

Fulham too may need some luck in Germany after a late Wolfsburg goal gave the Germans a crucial away strike in their 2-1 defeat to the English side. However I fancy Fulham can do it and book themselves a spot in the semi finals. I wasn’t too impressed with Wolfsburg when Man United’s reserves handed them a chasing at home in the Champions League, so I think Fulham could get the result they need in Germany to get themselves through.

Image Courtesy of *** Official Liverpool FC Photostream *** on Flickr.com

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