Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

[Amor de Cosmos]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

António Pulisão é um gênio wrote: It is difficult to change the subsitutions rule to allow for injury. Can you imagine if a Mourinho team had used up its three substitutes and Jose decided he needed to make a fourth sub? A player would suddenly develop a mysterious case of concussion.

Not if an independent doctor decided it was unnecessary.

[anton pulisov]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Reed John wrote: He was going for the ball.

The Vinnie Jones defence.

[anton pulisov]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

It is difficult to change the subsitutions rule to allow for injury. Can you imagine if a Mourinho team had used up its three substitutes and Jose decided he needed to make a fourth sub? A player would suddenly develop a mysterious case of concussion.

Not if an independent doctor decided it was unnecessary.

The problem is, I'm not sure if being trained to detect fake concussions is covered in med school.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Amor de Cosmos wrote: The seven categories of excessive force according to rule 12:

If:

1. kicks or attempts to kick an opponent

2. trips or attempts to trip an opponent

3. jumps at an opponent

4. charges an opponent

5. strikes or attempts to strike an opponent

6. pushes an opponent

7. tackles an opponent

No 3 is the only one that might cover what Neuer did. But only if you accept that jumping to clear the ball is totally irrelevant. If you do then it should be acknowledged within the rules.

Or 4. Or maybe even 5.

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Amor de Cosmos wrote: Nuer wasn't being reckless. He was going for the ball. It's the World Cup final, FFS, not a pick-up game.

Agreed.

But if, as JV suggests, Neuer's keeper/sweeper style is the way of the future then it changes the nature of the game. Just as the rules were re-interpreted in the 60s to prevent injuries to goalkeepers, then maybe the opposite should apply now. Though a single incident shouldn't be enough to make that case.

It is a single incident and watching it over and over shows me that a whole lot of things had to go exactly wrong for his knee to hit him like that. It may be 50 years before we see that same thing happen again.

[

i]One way to mitigate these dangers would be for keepers to wear knee and elbow pads.[/i]

I don't think so. That just ups the ante, similar occurrences will become commonplace. One of the good things about football is that minimal physical protection is necessary.

That's probably true, I suppose. But I was thinking that there may be a level of padding that's just enough to mitigate, albeit not eliminate, risk without making it easier or less painful for keepers to make contact. I might be wrong about that, but if I were a keeper, I'd want a bit of protection just to spare my knee caps from being split.

A more likely solution would be a rule forbidding the keeper to leave his feet outside the six-yard box. How that would work I don't know. More headed goals I imagine.

The six-yard box isn't good for much else, so that might be a good idea. Or maybe outlaw it beyond a slightly bigger box.

One things for sure FIFA needs a viable in-game concussion protocol. Immediate withdrawal and a couple of hours in the "darkened room" as per the NFL and NHL. A consequent change to the substitution rule would be required though, to prevent teams being down to ten men.

This is a case where soccer's limited substitution rule creates a problem. (At first I wanted to say "unique" substitution rule, but I guess a lot of sports popular outside of North America permit few subs and we are the outliers.)
In NCAA soccer, a player with a suspected head injury can be subbed outside of the regular substitution rules. This reduces the incentives for the coach to overlook head injury risk. But those rules are already very loose so that system couldn't really be applied easily to the proper soccer rules.

But, regardless of the rules, FIFA and all sporting bodies need to find a way to have a completely independent expert assess the players (that would be nice for all injuries, really, but it's most important for head injuries) and have the power and the fortitude to keep them out of the game if necessary.

If this expert were truly independent and honest, I suppose it would be possible to then allow a free sub for that player so as to reduce the incentives for concussed players to keep playing. If this special head doctor were incorruptible, there'd be little risk of a fake concussion generating an extra tactical sub.

But if this expert were doing their job, they could pull the player off the field at their own discretion (while talking to the ref, of course) and wouldn't need to rely on the player or the coach to care about the player's long-term well-being.

Besides, if a guy pulls his hamstring and the team has to use up one sub to replace him, that's just tough luck. I don't see why head injuries ought to be treated differently for the purposes of apportioning bad luck to a team.

However...
I fear that the real "bell-ringers" where the guy is clearly injured and may or may not know where he is, as was the case yesterday, are just the tip of the iceberg.

ESPN :60 did an alarming piece on an ex-college and lower-division American player who recently died young following a fairly rapid decline with .... MS? Lou Gehrig's? Parkinson's? or one of those and it was determined that the early onset of whateveritwas was probably the result of trauma caused by his soccer career. And maybe not just those head on head collisions, but just regular heading of the ball.

That's really frightening for the game, but nobody can really say for sure how or if it can be prevented. It also may just be a rare combination of heading the ball a lot and genetics or heading the ball a lot plus one or two traumatic injuries that leads to these consequences.

It's also possible that we need to ban heading below the age of 12 or 13 because the damage is done during development.

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Vicarious Thrillseeker wrote:

The seven categories of excessive force according to rule 12:

If:

1. kicks or attempts to kick an opponent

2. trips or attempts to trip an opponent

3. jumps at an opponent

4. charges an opponent

5. strikes or attempts to strike an opponent

6. pushes an opponent

7. tackles an opponent

No 3 is the only one that might cover what Neuer did. But only if you accept that jumping to clear the ball is totally irrelevant. If you do then it should be acknowledged within the rules.

Or 4. Or maybe even 5.

The same point applies. He wasn't charging, jumping *at* or attempting to strike an opponent (I think strike here means a malicious punch or kung-fu chop because, literally, strike could mean any contact whatsoever). He was attempting to clear the ball.

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

António Pulisão é um gênio wrote:

It is difficult to change the subsitutions rule to allow for injury. Can you imagine if a Mourinho team had used up its three substitutes and Jose decided he needed to make a fourth sub? A player would suddenly develop a mysterious case of concussion.

Not if an independent doctor decided it was unnecessary.

The problem is, I'm not sure if being trained to detect fake concussions is covered in med school.

It ought to be.
Not in med school, per se, but no doctor works for a pro or national team without a whole lot of specialized sports medicine training.

Every field of medicine wrestles with problems caused by relying on patients self-report of symptoms and, for obvious reasons, this is an especially big problem in neurology. Any doctor who would be hired to inspect head injuries in the World Cup or a major professional league would likely be well-trained, if not one of the world's leading experts, in objective tests for head injuries.

This really shouldn't be that complicated for FIFA or the FA, etc to sort out.

The much bigger problem will be dealing with head injuries for all the zillions of youth players out there. Those leagues can't afford to have a neurologist on the touch line at every match.

And often, unless an expert is watching carefully, the symptoms don't appear immediately. A friend of mine's kid who plays keeper at a pretty high youth level recently got a concussion playing pick-up basketball. He knew he'd been elbowed in the eye, but it wasn't until several days later that he started to feel the (thankfully temporary) brain damage. Fortunately, he's a sensible kid and his parents are extremely sensible, so they took him to the doctor and heeded his/her advice on rest and so forth. But a lot of kids and their psychotic parents would probably try to brush it off and put their kid back into action. They'd either not see a doctor or they'd opinion shop until they could get one to say the kid is fine. The youth leagues - even state high school sports associations - don't have independent physicians to make these judgements, and even if they did, if the symptoms don't appear during the game, they might never know about an incident that they need to investigate.

[Andy C]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

How quickly do you think that a medico could gather and weigh up all the evidence to make the call?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

The rules already cover this situation. Though. You can't do what neuer did. It's excessive force. The referee bottled it.

The seven categories of excessive force according to rule 12:

If:

1. kicks or attempts to kick an opponent

2. trips or attempts to trip an opponent

3. jumps at an opponent

4. charges an opponent

5. strikes or attempts to strike an opponent

6. pushes an opponent

7. tackles an opponent

No 3 is the only one that might cover what Neuer did. But only if you accept that jumping to clear the ball is totally irrelevant. If you do then it should be acknowledged within the rules.

This isn't excessive force. This is a list of things that you award a direct free kick for. Excessive force, is as the name suggests using way too much force to do something.

Reed, you can't justify what neuer did with reference to the importance of the occasion, or the ref getting it completely wrong, or that he got the ball. You're just not allowed do what he did in football. If you're flying through the air like you've been blasted out of a fucking cannon, and you smash your knee into an opponents head, then you should be sent off and banned for a good long while as a warning to others.

You're just not supposed to behave in this way, and that so many otherwise sane and rational people think that there's nothing wrong with what neuer did is completely insane. He could have fucking killed him. That should be the clue. If you run the risk of killing someone, it's probably a foul.

G man, for god's sake look at what you are justifying. Would you be saying the same things if Romero had done that to Klose?

[Fussbudget]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

garcia wrote: hang on, sorry, just looking at the neuer thing - it's inside the box, of course it is since he punches the thing (sorry, i'm tired) - i think it should have been a penalty. it's reckless endangerment of an opponent.

Just throwing a bit of a curveball in the "Neuer: cunt or no cunt" argument (for what it's worth, it looked like a 50/50 collision to me and I can't quite believe anyone would seriously compare it to the Schumacher/Battiston incident), but it actually looked to me like the ball wasn't in the penalty area when Neuer punched it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Andy C wrote: How quickly do you think that a medico could gather and weigh up all the evidence to make the call?

This is the SCAT2 test used by many professional sports organizations (including FIFA it seems.)

The "Maddocks Test" (#4) is the recommended in-game process, but the NHL, for example allows doctors their own diagnostic assessments.

[garcia]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

It may be 50 years before we see that same thing happen again.

it hasn't even been 50 years since the last time a german goalkeeper levelled a frenchman in a world cup knockout game.

it's clear that neuer thinks intimidation is an important part of his goalkeeping aura: think twice before you enter my territory (and his territory is larger than you would have thought, a sort of großstrafraum). but he shouldn't be allowed to burnish his menacing reputation by brutalising opponents. the violence of the collision was sickening. i think the match should be replayed.

[jason voorhees]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

I would replay the match, and I would give Neuer a red, and I would've given Argentina a penalty....if that was ever awarded at any point in the 120+ year history of the game for a similar play.

I think he was in Fussbudget, but it definitely was Klose.

What ?

What did I say ?

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:

The rules already cover this situation. Though. You can't do what neuer did. It's excessive force. The referee bottled it.

The seven categories of excessive force according to rule 12:

If:

1. kicks or attempts to kick an opponent

2. trips or attempts to trip an opponent

3. jumps at an opponent

4. charges an opponent

5. strikes or attempts to strike an opponent

6. pushes an opponent

7. tackles an opponent

No 3 is the only one that might cover what Neuer did. But only if you accept that jumping to clear the ball is totally irrelevant. If you do then it should be acknowledged within the rules.

This isn't excessive force. This is a list of things that you award a direct free kick for. Excessive force, is as the name suggests using way too much force to do something.

Reed, you can't justify what neuer did with reference to the importance of the occasion, or the ref getting it completely wrong, or that he got the ball. You're just not allowed do what he did in football. If you're flying through the air like you've been blasted out of a fucking cannon, and you smash your knee into an opponents head, then you should be sent off and banned for a good long while as a warning to others.

You're just not supposed to behave in this way, and that so many otherwise sane and rational people think that there's nothing wrong with what neuer did is completely insane. He could have fucking killed him. That should be the clue. If you run the risk of killing someone, it's probably a foul.

G man, for god's sake look at what you are justifying. Would you be saying the same things if Romero had done that to Klose?

You keep just begging the question and mischaracterizing what actually happened on the play.

We're done.

[Reginald Lorenzo]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

I watched last nights game. I remember it as being quite a tough encounter settled by a superbly taken goal. Only upon checking back here tonight do I realise "that another german world cup will be remembered for a savage act of violence."

That really is a ridiculous statement. Or am I missing the wind-up?

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

garcia wrote:

It may be 50 years before we see that same thing happen again.

it hasn't even been 50 years since the last time a german goalkeeper levelled a frenchman in a world cup knockout game.

it's clear that neuer thinks intimidation is an important part of his goalkeeping aura: think twice before you enter my territory (and his territory is larger than you would have thought, a sort of großstrafraum). but he shouldn't be allowed to burnish his menacing reputation by brutalising opponents. the violence of the collision was sickening. i think the match should be replayed.

As MANY people on this thread have pointed out and explained, that play was completely different. Your absolute refusal to see the differences makes further discussion on this point futile.

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

How quickly do you think that a medico could gather and weigh up all the evidence to make the call?

This is the SCAT2 test used by many professional sports organizations (including FIFA it seems.)

The "Maddocks Test" (#4) is the recommended in-game process, but the NHL, for example allows doctors their own diagnostic assessments.

I'd add to that, that discretion should be the better part of valor and the in-game diagnosis should error (err?) on the side of assuming a head injury if there's any doubt.

[G-Man]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:
G man, for god's sake look at what you are justifying. Would you be saying the same things if Romero had done that to Klose?

Holy fuck, the second time you do that "you're-saying-that-only-because" thing. So I repeat: It's a cheap trick which you object to when applied to you in relation to Manchester United.

I note that several people who didn't support Germany exonerate Neuer, and people who support Germany hold hm culpable. You and garcia may not grasp it, but it is possible to evaluate this incident dispassionately. One can disagree, as people do on this incident. I'm happy to accept that; there is no need to arrive at the consensus you demand.

If I was motivated by partisanship, I'd demand an inquest into Garay's injuring Christoph Kramer, which actually was a pretty nasty foul which could have done Kramer lasting harm. I accept that it can happen that a player slams his shoulder into the head of an opponent that it nearly snaps.

[G-Man]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

oof.



And on video

[Kurt Bafokeng]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Tough game, yes. Höwedes, Neuer, Garay, Mascherano.
But dear OTF, where is your sense of proportion? Is that incident the most important or even interesting thing about the final? Really?

[G-Man]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

Yeah, it's odd. I suppose the other four or five potential red cards were more straight-forward. Höwedes, Mascherano and Agüero were nailed on. Schweinsteiger night have been sent off in the 122nd minute.

Garay's is the only contentious one, other than the Neuer incident.

I'd be interested to know how the media in other countries treated the Neuer incident. Scanning the Internet, the British media have gone pretty crazy, almost everything I've read referencing Toni Schumacher. hey also went crazy about Thomas Müller when the rest of the world blamed Pepe.

I'm not saying that OTF takes its cues from the British and Irish press, but the reaction might nonetheless be (for want of a better word) cultural.

But, you know, a bit of outrage might be a better release than a discussion of tactics, or whether Kramer's injury and the resultant reshuffle actually helped Germany, or whether Messi had a good or poor game, or whether Argentina were feeling the extra-time they had to play on Wednesday, or whether Schweinsteiger is a machine, or whether Angela Merkel felt at home sitting in close proximity to such paragons of corruption as Vladimir Putin, Sepp Blatter and Jacob Zuma.

[hobbes]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

To be honest G, I've no real problem with your reading. I think Neuer couldn't have had any complaints if he'd been sent off for it, but you know, he wasn't.
What provoked my incredulity was Janik's frankly bizarre attempt to make out that it was somehow the striker's fault that Neuer flattened him from nowhere.

[Tony C]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

G-Man wrote:

G man, for god's sake look at what you are justifying. Would you be saying the same things if Romero had done that to Klose?

I accept that it can happen that a player slams his shoulder into the head of an opponent that it nearly snaps.

Hmm, and yet you found the word ""assault" overly emotive earlier.

[Reed John]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

But, you know, a bit of outrage might be a better release than a discussion of tactics, or whether Kramer's injury and the resultant reshuffle actually helped Germany, or whether Messi had a good or poor game, or whether Argentina were feeling the extra-time they had to play on Wednesday, or whether Schweinsteiger is a machine, or whether Angela Merkel felt at home sitting in close proximity to such paragons of corruption as Vladimir Putin, Sepp Blatter and Jacob Zuma.

Here's what Merkel thinks of Putin.
https://screen.yahoo.com/weekend-angela-merkel-063516718.html

I know Lebron, Tom Brady, and the Beckhams were there.

I though the Schweinsteiger non-call was more egregious than the one's we're arguing about. Much more avoidable.

[garcia]

Germany vs Argentina heavy-weight title bout

so g-man, you're posting pictures of an obviously accidental clash between garay and kramer, apparently to muddy the waters and suggest there is some moral equivalence between this and what neuer did. isn't this something of a tactical retreat on your part. you're essentially saying OK, what neuer did was assault, but whatabout what THEY did?.

there is an obvious difference between those two situations. garay will probably never do that to another opponent. technically, it's too difficult. whereas with neuer, now that he has the taste for it, and finds that it has been not only overlooked but actively encouraged and celebrated by his countrymen, i expect him to offend again - and again. i'm afraid this could end very, very badly.