Al Jazeera: World Cup ref defends final match

Rightardia saw all but the first 30 minutes of the match and thought the Dutch team tried to out muscle the Spanish. A real soccer match is a game of speed and finesse, which the Spanish had more of.

Webb did an excellent job of controlling the game with Yellow Cards and there were eight the first half, mostly on the Dutch team. Rightardia did not feel Webb made any bad calls and called a lot of tripping calls correctly that a less experienced ref would have missed.The slo mo replays proved that Webb was an impartial ref.


The Spanish clearly had a better team and deserved to win, making a lot more shots on goal than the Dutch did the second half. The Dutch team should stop whining.


WC referee defends final match

Webb has received a barrage of criticism following the World Cup final in Johannesburg [AFP]

Howard Webb, the World Cup final referee, has defended his performance in Sunday's match and said he did all he could to keep control in a bad-tempered atmosphere.

The Englishman received a barrage of criticism in the wake of Spain's 1-0 extra-time victory over the Netherlands after handing out 13 yellow cards and sending off Dutchman John Heitinga.

Several Dutch players spoke out after the final whistle, accusing Webb of favouring the Spaniards, who in turn felt he had failed to clamp down on aggressive Netherlands tactics.

"Whatever the match, you always hope that the officials won't need to be heavily involved. However, we had to raise our profile in order to keep control," Webb said in a statement on the Premier League website on Tuesday.

Unsavoury haranguing

The final was marred by a series of rash Dutch challenges and unsavoury haranguing of officials.

"We don't feel that we had much choice except to manage the game in the way we did. We came away feeling satisfied that we'd done a tough job in difficult circumstances to the best of our abilities," Webb said in his statement.
Some say that De Jong was lucky to only get a yellow card for his foul on Alonso [AFP]

"It was an extremely challenging match to handle, but it would have been so for any referee.

"It is one of the toughest games we will ever be involved in and we feel that we worked hard to keep the focus on the football as much as possible."

The Dutch were lucky to avoid a sending-off in the first half when Nigel de Jong kicked Xabi Alonso in the chest and was given a yellow card.

source: http://english.aljazeera.net/sport/2010/07/201071481343215637.htm

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