When you talk about "so much at stake" what could be more at stake than the integrity of a sport and the respect for its rules when wanting a referee to get his/her decisions "right"? The funny thing is, if you used a review process to evaluate the referee's decision, it really gives nani less of a leg to stand on because the replays show him taking a quick glance up-field for a split second before he trained his focus on the ball and he "seems" (I am being very nice in using the word "seems" here) to extend his leg out quite intentionally upon feeling contact with Arbeloa....not to mention his phony writhing around in contrived pain as if he had just stepped on a land mine. PLUS....the referee may have very well held conference with the other officials before making his decision. Quite often we blame referees for "changing the course of the game" and I agree when they make "bad" calls like not being able to tell an obvious dive from a legitimate foul and awarding penalties, red cards etc., (pick
ANY major incident involving manu's johnny evans
) yeah, I can see that....but when a referee has made a decision that is correct to the letter of the law, we have to respect his decision and blame the player for putting him in a position to have to use his judgment. Everybody was up in arms and blaming the ref that sent off van persie for "cheating arsenal out of a victory" against Barcelona when van persie CLEARLY committed a cautionable offence and it was an offence that one of his teammates had already been cautioned for.....yet, one of our biggest complaints about referees is them not being "consistent". At first, I, too, thought the foul was only worthy of a yellow but after viewing the replay and having to endure his faking (WTF could he POSSIBLY have hurt?!) I woulda give his ass a red, too. (manu hater's card notwithstanding)
