Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label football

Hope

Albania 0 - Holland 1

Bad result. Albania should have had at least a draw. If one of the two early efforts that were cleared off the line had gone in who knows what might have happened. I don't know what was wrong with the first disallowed goal, though the second one was definitely offside. I know some people have been blaming the referee - we all do and I've done it myself many times - but the biggest culprit on the night was the Albanian number 5, Cana. He went in with the head - twice - pushing past the referee on the second occasion to get to his man. You use the head, you get sent off - there's nothing controversial about that. (You can read Cana's excuses here .) So Albania, who had defended exceptionally well up to that point were left to face the last crucial minutes against a fired up Holland one man short in the midefield. Equal billing for idiot of the night goes to the fool who threw the firecracker at Melchiot. Should the referee have restarted the game and played the last 100 s...

Where Are the Orange Hordes?

I had expected that the Dutch fans would have started arriving yesterday for Holland's game against Albania tonight, so I went out to find them. All I found was a group of seven drinking Heineken (home from home) at Taiwan yesterday afternoon. I went out again last night, but if they were in Tirana they were evidently staying in their hotel bars. I'm heading out again in an hour with my camera to see if I can track a few down today.