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© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Brazil leave it late to beat Costa Rica 2-0
By JEROME PUGMIRE ST. PETERSBURG, Russia©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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goldorak
The best & the worst of Brazil was on show last night.
nandakandamanda
Right after the final goal he goes round and comes up to grab and shock a CR defender from behind. Must have shouted "Take that!" or to something him. The scene was mostly cut out of the replays.
The ref seems to have been unawed and well aware of his antics and warned him for shooting off at the mouth. This unpredictable kid can be a handful on the field, as goldorak and Alfie suggest, unneeded extra aggro for a ref just trying to do a difficult job.
Luckily Brazil managed to somehow maintain a team effort, not leaving all the work to one tired superstar like Argentina and Messi.
Bravo to Costa Rica though, for a wonderful performance!
Alfie Noakes
Yes, he got hacked all over the place but he's been just as petulant at Barca and PSG as well. Also, there's a steady drumbeat of financial irregularities, disagreements with managers, fights with colleagues on the training pitch and throwing his toys out the pram style flounces.
MarkX
Should he not have been carded for the flopping/diving to try and get a penalty? I also wouldn't put it past him to rip those holes in his socks just to garner more support. Glad the ref was not star struck as in the game that was done by the American referee.
tooheysnew
Could someone please explain why so many teams are not wearing their main strips.
In almost every game, one team has worn a white strip.
eg. why didn’t Sth.Korea wear their red shirts against Sweden (blue) ?
lucabrasi
@toohey
Wonder if there are still enough black and white TVs, and enough folk with less-than-perfect vision, to justify it?
CrazyJoe
Bogus amount of stoppage time added, and the ref didn't even adhere to that limit, allowing Neymar to get his goal after the assigned stoppage time expired. The game had clearly been won in the first minute of the arbitrary twilight zone known as stoppage time, so there was no point to play on after 6 minutes. (Brazil’s second goal was timed at 96:49)
Luddite
Brazil's cheating was an utter disgrace. Neymar should have been booked for that dive in the penalty area. He went back like a stunt man being shot in a bad Steven Segal film.
nandakandamanda
Putin pulling the strings behind the scenes?
albaleo
The more strips a team uses, the more the crazy fans will buy. And of course, the football associations get a cut.
theFritzX
soccer is 90 minutes of players pretending to be injured. Rugby is 80 minutesof players pretendingnot to be injured. Thatjust about sums up modern football.