Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Check Out the Center Circle at the Camp Nou

Obviously this picture doesn't show the point I'm trying to make. I just had to use for it aesthetic purposes, so I hope you don't mind.

In all seriousness though, if you're watching the Champions League semifinal first leg between Barcelona and Manchester United at the Camp Nou right now, take a look at the center circle. Whoever painted those lines must've been drunk. If not drunk, he was high. He could've been both drunk and high.

That is the most wobbly circle I've ever seen in a professional stadium, especially a stadium of this magnitude for a game with this importance. It's a disgrace. You would think that one of the most basic tenants of the game, the lines on the field, would at least be painted correctly. It's supposed to be a perfect circle with a 10-yard radius around the center spot.

If that's a perfect circle, then I don't know how I passed geometry. I don't think my eyes are deceiving me on this one. What a joke.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since you're pretending not to have seen this at EPLTalk I'm posting it here as well. When someone says I have no credibility as a viewer it is important that they know that a) they're an idiot, and b) they're wrong.

Michael, you are a complete and utter idiot. How could Barca have scored 4 if they didn’t even have that many shots on target? What complete tripe you are blurting out. Your opinion may be different from mine, but mine is based on evidence, yours is based on what you want to believe (ie, that the “EPL” is boring, presumably), therefore mine has more value.

Well, while you dispute the correlation betwen shots on target and the level of excitement in a game, without countering this evidence with some of your own, I can prove that you are definitely wrong and talking out of your rear end with regards to the Marquez challenge. Just a recap of my previous reminder to you of the rules of football. If a player makes a shoulder barge, there are a number of conditions, and if any one of these are true, then it is a foul and therefore in this instance a penalty. One of these conditions was that the challenge happens 3ft or more away from the ball. The ball was well ahead of Ronaldo when the challenge was made. Look at the highlights here and pause when the challenge is made (consider Ronaldo is 6ft, ball needs to be within 3 ft of challenge):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIJ-fRFDN0U

You can’t be bothered to watch and check it out yourself? Ok then just follow the link to this picture I made which clearly shows the distance:

http://www.uploadgeek.com/uploads456/0/ronaldopen.jpg

I will therefore consider your lack of response after this point as an admission that you are wrong due to the irrefutable evidence proposed above.

Thank you very much for coming.

Michael said...

Barca had six shots on goal, Sheps.

As I said on EPLTalk, I have no time to respond to someone who honestly believes that the Liverpool-Chelsea game was more exciting than the Barca-Man United game.

I'm a USSF-certified referee myself, and I wouldn't have called that a penalty. In fact, I would've given Ronaldo a yellow card for diving. You can give me all the facts about the letter of the law that you want, but that's such a thing as the spirit of the law. There was no way Ronaldo was going to get a penalty on that, no way.

Thank YOU very much for coming, and please don't come back. Your feedback is appreciated, but your idiocy is not.

Anonymous said...

Which particular parts of the rules do you not understand? I have explained the rules to you and shown you pictoral evidence. Did Marquez make a challenge? Yes. Was it a shoulder barge? Yes. Was it inside the box? Yes. Was the ball more than 3 feet away? Yes. Therefore the rules state it was a penalty. Which part of this don't you understand? It is very, very clear. Admit you're wrong and stop digging a hole you can't get out of.

I feel for the people you referee. Or are the rules in America just different?

Michael said...

You've shown me evidence that means nothing. How do I know that those distances are accurate? They can be questioned to every extent.

Even if they are correct, that doesn't really matter. Look, if that same incident occurred in the middle of the field, then it very well could have been called. That was NEVER, EVER going to be a penalty though, because Man U already got a PK early in the game and the game was in Spain. Referees don't make a habit of giving visiting teams multiple penalties in the same game. To make matters worse, Ronaldo clearly embellished the contact. He went looking for a penalty.

We're never going to see eye-to-eye on this, so again, go ahead and get the last word in, because I'm done.

Anonymous said...

You're clearly insane if you think that the ball was within 3 feet when the challenge was made. Look at the video, it's the most obvious thing in the world. They can be questioned in every extent. Oh which extents are those? What a complete bollocks up of an argument, you have no idea what you're talking about. Go and play baseball or something whose rules you are capable of understanding. I believe you just hit a ball, eat some mac donalds and then hit some more.