*Official* Uruguay v Netherlands (Semi Final 1)

[Lillian Thomson]

Shocking commentary from ITV tonight, seemed desperate to do the game down. The way it was described you would have thought it was a horrible 1-0 or something. and why no 'expert' commentator?

He explained that Jim Beglin had been taken ill at the last minute.

[Furball]

Urgh, typical ITV really. My estimation of Southgate has gone down massively over the course of this tournament. Beforehand I thought he was a relatively nice, and clean cut (albet crap) lad. But he has made some incredibly stupid and cutting remarks which have just made him look like a complete idiot. Good job the BBC is covering the other semi tomorrow, hopefully we'll get Clarence again.

Went up in my estimation when England were knocked out, seemed to be the only one on ITV who tried to open up the debate to question whether the EPL and the players within were actually worthy of the hype they get, and made the valid point that 3 managers, none of whom are bad managers when you consider the success they've had at club level, had failed with the 'Golden Generation', and was shouted down by Townsend acting like a 5 year old.

[Pothas]

He explained that Jim Beglin had been taken ill at the last minute.

Fair enough, thought it must be something like that.

Does not excuse the general awfulness that was the commentary.

[vcs]

Van Persie finally had an excellent game, I thought. He's been poor so far in this tournament.

[biased indian]

how Van Bommel is in the good books of almost every referee ????
he finally got one yesterday in the 93rd minute though what was that for arguing with referee ??

[GIMH]

Holland

[pasag]

Uruguay

[GIMH]

u r a ****

[Furball]

how Van Bommel is in the good books of almost every referee ????
he finally got one yesterday in the 93rd minute though what was that for arguing with referee ??

How he wasn't sent off against Brazil is beyond me, literally spent the last 10 minutes booting anything that was moving and wearing blue.

Might put a cheeky pound on him being sent off in the final.

[Scaly piscine]

If you believe in omens (despite them being a load of crap) there's the distinct possibly of Howard Webb refereeing the final and Germany being the first team not to let the massively over-rated Spain side through.

Two other World Cup finals have been refereed by an Englishman. The last one in 1974 when Germany beat the Netherlands. The other one was in 1954 when West Germany won.

Although the facts in the above paragraph are brought to you by the Metro. So they may be bollocks.

[Lillian Thomson]

If you believe in omens (despite them being a load of crap) there's the distinct possibly of Howard Webb refereeing the final and Germany being the first team not to let the massively over-rated Spain side through.

Two other World Cup finals have been refereed by an Englishman. The last one in 1974 when Germany beat the Netherlands. The other one was in 1954 when West Germany won.

Although the facts in the above paragraph are brought to you by the Metro. So they may be bollocks.

Good old Mr Ling in 1954. He disallowed (on the advice of his linesman) what many still today consider to have been a perfectly good Hungarian equalizer. There was the usual call for video technology to be used but they decided that waiting six weeks for the Pathe News footage would have interupted the flow of play too much.