someone, something

Last Friday, at the end of the second half of extra time, Ghana attacked like a great team. They had Uruguay by the throat with a brilliant display of physical strength and technique, and managed to get a free kick near the box in the last minute.
The penalty that came about seconds later, from Luis Suárez’s handball on the goal line, has been thoroughly discussed in the last few days, but I still can’t understand how the portuguese referee Olegario Benquerenca was able to organize it so quickly.
A penalty given in the last second of a quarter final game that’s tied 1-1, with a red card given to one of the star forwards of the tournament, should’ve created at least several minutes of chaos.
That was not the case. In the blink of an eye, Suárez left the field, the teams lined-up behind the box and Asamoah Gyan and Fernando Muslera took up their places.
There has never been so much speed in organizing a penalty. Unfortunately, nobody had the sense to protect Gyan.
Ghana’s last minutes of play had been so fabulous, so out of the ordinary, that all the players were surely flying. Someone in the team should’ve thrown himself to the ground with a cramp or seen a camera gone wild behind the goal or asked the referee something stupid, I don’t know what, but something should’ve been done to allow Gyan’s head to cool down a bit.
Half a minute would’ve been enough. The penalty would’ve turned into a goal, the best of the two teams would’ve won and not much would’ve been said about Suárez’s ethical standards.
Ghana went out of the tournament because its players didn’t get theatrical when they had to.

the deluge

A light drizzle mists the second half of Uruguay-South Korea.
At the 68th minute mark, Lee Chung-yong heads over Lugano and Muslera to score the tying goal for Korea.
The goal seems to send a signal up to the sky, and suddenly the drizzle becomes a downpour.
The wet Uruguayans wake up, push forward and move the ball around. But the Koreans stumble through the deluge, not knowing any longer what match they're playing - as if they are dropped in a different stadium. The minutes go by and they can't regain control of the ball. In the 80th minute, after a corner kick, Luis Suárez scores a stunner for Uruguay.
Korea tries to tie the game, but it's useless, nothing works. Then, as the German referee Wolfgang Stark blows the whistle to end the match, the rain stops.
The Koreans can see clearly again. Unfortunately, they see themselves out of the World Cup. They are the first to loose in the round of 16.
It all belongs to one of those scripts from the past in which destiny expresses itself through some natural phenomenon.

the blessing

"The one thing we don't want is for this World Cup to be ruined by players conning, deceiving the referee, in one word, cheating!”
Ian Darke, British play-by-play commentator for ESPN.
This makes me laugh.

the hand

Before the opening whistle, Henry maneuvers the ball with his hand, France scores and Ireland stays out of the World Cup.

The Hand comes in against Uruguay after 71 minutes. We've all seen it warm up by the side of the field.

In the 88th minute, The Hand indignantly calls for a penalty due to contact of the ball with an Uruguayan defender's hand inside the box. The replay shows that the entire arm of the Uruguayan is pressed against his body when the ball strikes it.