Olympic Games 2012, Football, St James’ Park, Newcastle
Brazil 3 – 2 Honduras
The men’s Quarterfinal of the Olympic Football should have been Brazil v Spain but the Spanish were sent packing in the group stage which was quite a shock. Because of this I almost didn’t go to the game on Friday night. I really didn’t expect much from this game as I’d no clue about Honduras, I even had to check where Honduras was on a map (Central America). Anyway I headed to Newcastle anyway by bus over night which I never intend to do again…
Honduras took an early lead against the run of play and from then on held themselves. The ref decided that he wanted to take center stage by sending off Honduras defender Crisanto for what seemed like a nothing challenge following a yellow card the previous minute. I guess you could say silly boy but it still wasn’t a yellow card in the first place. Six minutes later and Brazil were level.
The second half and Honduras once again took the lead through Espinoza, 3 minutes later the ref once again wanted to mix things up and awarded Brazil a penalty which Neymar dispatched. The challenged happened right in front of me and was never a penalty in a million years.
Brazil took the lead on 60 minutes even-though Honduras continued to play like they had 11 men and were by far the better side throughout the whole 90 minutes of a game where bad referring decisions cost them dearly. On 90 minutes the ref again decided that he should ruin his chances of ever referring in a top league in the world by sending Espinaza from Honduras off for a challenge that was hardly worth the whistle let alone a card. I then left in disgust.
Something that I have noticed in all 3 Olympic football sessions I attended is that the referring has been very poor indeed. I would say that the refs in the Championship and League 1 are of a much higher quality than what is seen at the Olympic Games, FIFA must be able to allow top refs to this tournament in the future.
A quick note on St James’ Park if you ever go then you may have trouble finding your seat. There is very poor signage around the states as to where each block is. I lost count of how many times I assisted a steward who was near me to directing people to their seats before kick off, had I not I wouldn’t of seen the first few minutes of the game.