Not all contact constitutes a foul. Part of the problem with these referees is that maybe 99% of them either never played the game, or never played it enough to know the difference between a real foul or a dive. Clearly some of the folks posting on this site are in the same position, but, that's ok. These football players nowadays play for contact more than they play to win the game on their own merits, and Thierry Henry is FAST becoming another one of those types of players. While he DID put a BRILLIANT move on Carvalho, he MADE A MEAL out of the contact made, simply because it was the type of contact that, had he fallen like a sniper victim (like he did) he knew the ref would call it. Carvalho made contact, but it wasn't enough to hinder Henry. Henry was able to plant his leg after contact was made, so he definitely shouldn't have "collapsed" the way he did. He fell as if he had his feet taken out from beneath him. Guess he had a sex change after the Champions' League final!
Defenders can no longer slide or skate-tackle a forward any more, because players like Henry, Ballack, Robben, Totti and many others, no longer push the ball past the defender and skip over him like they used to in the good old days. They make sure they drag one of their feet in order to create contact and make like the defender just snapped his spinal cord! The man that suggested that he could see how the ref in the Australia-Italy game "could give that penalty" really need to learn the game a little bit more, with all due respect.
