poor imitation

The Slovakian defender Martin Skrtel lifts his foot to chin level and the Spanish referee Alberto Undiano calls a foul. Skrtel goes haywire and imitates his coach, Vladimir Weiss, who has spent most of the match shouting at Undiano.
Many coaches think that waging a psychological war against the referees is part of their job, and that's why they're always shouting from the side-line and protesting any decision that favors the other team. They're generally men who have an inflated sense of their place in the game.
Skrtel, then, infected as he is with psychological warfare, forgets the ball, forgets Kuyt, the Dutch forward who's behind him, and lets it all out against Undiano.
The ball is played fast to Kuyt, who gets into the Slovakian box and looks up. Skrtel runs back, but has no time to get to anyone. He's bound to lose.
Kuyt sends the ball to the middle of the box. Sneijder comes in unmarked and scores the second goal for Holland. It's the 84th minute, too late for Slovakia to tie the match.

paper rolls

Argentina-Mexico is on its first minutes when referee Roberto Rosetti of Italy wants the paper rolls on the field to be removed. It's Fifa's voice coming loud and strong, saying this is not the same as an Argentinian tournament. Here in the World Cup all is clarity, cleanliness and order.
In the 26th minute, clarity gets a drubbing. The assistant Stefano Ayroldi doesn't see the off-side as Argentina scores its first goal, and then he suffers a mental collapse. The Mexican team run en masse to the side-line. The assistant seems to want to change his mind, so Rosetti has to come to his rescue and usher the Mexicans away. Ayroldi sweats and babbles something. It looks like someone is scolding him through the communication device. Rosetti shakes his head and moves toward the center of the field. It's a goal.
Rosetti does the right thing. If he and his assistants don't see an off-side, they don't see it, period. The ball moved fast between Messi and Tévez after all. The world will surely question his decision, but he has to call whatever he and his assistants see.
During two other moments of the first half, a sky-blue balloon flies near the midfield, delicately bouncing on the grass and poking fun.

did you see that?

The 2-2 that wasn't.

Central magician: Jorge Larrionda (Uruguay)
Assistant magician: Mauricio Espinosa (Uruguay)

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.

pantomime

Two good teams that won't attack each other...what an awful thing to watch.
A détente came about in the 80th minute of Chile-Spain, and that was the end of Group H's first round. We were treated to 10 or 12 minutes of simulation. The ball was there, but nobody wanted it, so it looked like pantomime.
In their defense, it should be said that they played a great match until then: tense, strong, intelligent and with goals. Also, they were really afraid of each other.

the feast

It starts early, in the 50th minute of Italy-Slovakia. The ball is out of play, half-way between the box and the side-line. Mucha, the Slovakian goalie, takes his sweet time getting it—evidence that his team is going to defend their one-goal advantage with delay. The Italian Di Natale runs to press him on. They bump into each other and the goalie falls hard to the ground, with no shame, stealing liberally from the Italian repertoire.
Two minutes later, Fabio Cannavaro, Italy’s captain, tries to teach Mucha how to bring a yellow card to life and dives as soon as Hamsik challenges. But Howard Ebb, the English referee, isn’t playing along.
Slovakia scores a second time and the commentators are ready to dismiss Italy from the tournament until Di Natale shows himself again and scores for the current champions.
Thereafter it’s 16 minutes of total opera, only it’s Slovakian opera. Mucha, inside his own goal and tangled up by the net, is the overture. The coach magically eats up time with his substitutions, and the players follow suit with delirious dives, doubled up from nothing whatsoever—happily gathering a new collection of yellow cards. In between tumbles each team scores once more, turning the whole affair into a beautiful, wild carnival, the best of the World Cup so far.

the comedy of errors

It's the 92nd minute of U.S.-Algeria. There's a corner kick for the African team. It may be their last chance to tie the game and save some face. The ball flies to the box, someone heads it, and the referee Frank De Bleeckere of Belgium calls a foul against the U.S. Some Algerian players furiously approach the referee. Two are inches away from his face, and one of them waves his arms repeatedly. De Bleeckere steps back and turns around. He takes out his cards and, turning back again, flashes the yellow card to the player in front of him. It's the captain, Anther Yahia, and this is his second yellow card. The referee remembers this and pulls out the regulatory red card. Yahia can't believe it. He does what many other players have done before: gestures of bewilderement, he hasn't done a thing, this is absurd, this can't be happening.
Yahia is still gesturing to the camera as he takes off the captain's armband and walks off the field. It's a heartfelt performance. He's using more energy here than he used when the match was tied at zero and Algeria had to attack and score to move on to the next round.
Yahia finally leaves the field. The tv producers give us the replay. This time we're closer to the action. The two players who are on the referee's face are Hassan Yebda and Rafik Halliche. It's the latter's arms that move aggresively up and down. Then Yahia emerges in between his two teammates. He pushes them aside and moves on to deal with the ref. From the side, which is how we see him, Yahia somewhat resembles Halliche. De Bleeckere turns around and pulls out the cards.
Yahia wasn't acting.