Official World Cup Thread

**English assassin** · 11-18-2005, 15:25

No disrespect LEN, because England can't exactly give anyone lessons in football hooliganism, (or rather, we can, sadly), but I can't say any of this is a complete surprise. My impression from English teams playing European football in Turkey is that the clubs are perfectly happy with the sort of bear-pit atmosphere that develops, and if you dine with the devil, sooner or later he is going to get out of control...

In other words this sort of thing was bound to get out of hand eventually, especially if as M says some of the Turkish police are maybe also too wrapped up in the game and not enough in their job.

Not intended as a criticism of Turks generally, as I say England too has a problem, albeit maybe a different one.

**LeftEyeNine** · 11-18-2005, 16:00

Well appreciated, EA..

We were told so much happening in Switzerland that the atmosphere in Turkey was impossible to avoid.. Do not inquire whether it is so important or not, if the coach gets sworn at, Magnin fakes striking the bench and, fans whistle off our national anthem. These could happen and they did.

Sorry, we are emotional ones. And you absolutely know how to arise it.

**Tricon** · 11-18-2005, 17:34

What really ticks me is that the turkish media did a lot to heat this thing up further. From what I'm reading most turkish papers/TV channels did not show Özdilek tripping the swiss player (who a few seconds later kicked him). That is feeding missinformation. And, since numerous other TV stations are filming the thing, it's really not that smart. (It's like every country seems to need a paper that goes above and beyond the call of feeding BS to the public, be it The Sun,BILD, Enquirer, or as in this case Sabah- but this is maybe a topic for a different thread)

Anyway, over all this mess, the Trinidad/Tobago- Bahrain game seems to be totally forgotten. Again, i could not see the game... was it a legitimate goal the referee did not accept, or was he right?

**Quid** · 11-18-2005, 19:43

Well, am glad that this mess is finally being sorted and the accusations can stop. More and more is now being analysed and processed so that something like this won't happen again in the near future.

I, too, find it dispicable when so-called fans whistle during the visitor's national anthem. I, too, was annoyed at the fact that the Swiss did it during the Turkish one. At least, however, the Turkish national anthem could still be heard

.

I completely agree with Tricon on this one. It was the media falsely portraying the incidents and trying to create a mob that would be ready to lynch any Swiss in the vicinity of the stadium (probably a gross exaggeration). We all know that many Turks are steered by their emotions and the newspapers and the tv were banking on that. To intimidate was apparently more important to them than fairplay.

With Turkish newspapers today coming out with the truth I can't help but be a little cynical. It just appears that there is a lot of back-peddaling going on at the moment.

I don't think Turkey deserves an outright ban either. I, too, would think that of too harsh. Something has to be done about the media and such 'hate campaigns' against visiting teams, however. Some of our players (at least one) will also need to be banned for attacking one of the Turkish physios. No matter what happened before, such attacks are not acceptable by anyone.

As to the Bahrein - T and T match...I have watched the goal disallowed...I would have given it...the player at no time even touched the goalkeeper. The ref, however, could not have seen it. I seem to remember that George Best had such a goal disallowed once also.

Quid

EDIT: I must also apologise to you, LEN, I just got increasingly frustrated with all the things you said that were simple not true or only partially true. I now know, of course, that you were not fed the same information as the rest of Europe.

**LeftEyeNine** · 11-18-2005, 20:15

Quid, grab the beer, mate !

**Divico** · 11-18-2005, 21:21

And considering that some of the most successful and respected current and retired palyers on the Swiss national team have names like Kubilay , Hakan and Murat, that was really a stupid incident last Wednesday.