By Can I get a big “Aigo!” for this:
High profile handballs are trendy right now. Starting with Thierry Henry’s against Ireland last year and peaking with Luis Suarez’s goal-saving effort against Ghana in the World Cup, both sparked outrage and debate, but both also helped their respective teams. South Korea defender Jeong Yeonga’s handball in their 5-1 semifinal loss to their German hosts in the Women’s U-20 World Cup did not help her team, though. Granted, it didn’t really hurt her team, either, since they were already losing 4-1 at the time. But still…it was weird. [Yahoo Sports]
You can read the rest at the link, but some are declaring this the World’s Dumbest Penalty”, which seems pretty harsh for something that was clearly a brain fart that had no impact on the game.
11:14 am on August 1st, 2010 1
video removed- damn!
11:22 am on August 1st, 2010 2
Already being called the "dumbest penalty of all time"!
Here's the vid: http://www.as.com/futbol/video/penalti-tonto-mund…
She must have thought the ball was out of play or play was stopped. Otherwise, why would she catch it?
I love these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qckHRVz6rMk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFdICYKCnck&fe…
2:07 pm on August 1st, 2010 3
I saw part of the game and don't know if it was the same play. The ball came at a Korean player about upper chest high. Maybe it caught her off guard and she thought it would hit her in the face. Her right arm came up defensively and hit the ball with her forearm. Maybe not dumb but it sure looked like an amateurish peewee league reaction.
7:24 pm on August 1st, 2010 4
I played little league soccer from elementary through high school, and my greatest moment was when a freak play occurred and the opposing team had knocked a lucky kick straight for the goal at a time when our goalkeeper and my fellow fullbacks were all somewhere else.
I leaped up as high as I could (I'm now 5'7" and I was probably 5'3 then) and managed to slap the ball with my palm, calling a penalty for myself but preventing what might have ended up a tying goal for the other team. The thing is, I didn't even think about it; I just reached for it, though I think what might have happened was that I tried to head it and my flailing arms made contact. I was sort of having an other-wordly experience.
Anyway, great that this is becoming a soccer tradition.