Almoststew1990 wrote on 2021-07-12, 06:12:
However they say its about time a ruling like that goes in England's favour - The disallowed England goal against Germany in 2010... the hand of God whenever that was in the 80s I think? England has been at the losing end of decisions like that for a while.
For a while, yes... With that said, their only major victory (1966 World Cup) came largely thanks to an overtime goal (in the final against Germany) that was allowed, even though it is quite doubtful it fully crossed the line. To be fair, the technology at the time did not allow it to be clearly determined, and even today you can get different opinions depending on the angle the scene is viewed from.
I think a lot of people were especially upset over the Sterling penalty decision, because, unlike in the past, nowadays there is tons of technology to determine what happened with very high degrees of certainty, but the way the protocols are written, there was basically no way to force the referee to consult VAR, which he did not. And because it was England and the final was in England, the situation immediately gave rise to allegations of corruption against UEFA for "pulling the home team into the final".
But yeah, this time they got a lucky break from a questionable referee decision and went to the final. And, yes, it can be said that regardless of the questionable decision, England played better than Denmark in that game, and in some way "deserved to win". Just like Italy played better than England in the final and also "deserved to win", although in the end it went to a toss-up which could have easily gone either way.
Unlike most sports, in which the team/player performing better in a given game, is almost guaranteed to win that game, in football ("soccer" for Americans 😉) this is not the case, because the events determining the winner (goals) are relatively rare. Some love football for it, some hate it, but this is how it is.
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