Sunday 18 October 2009

Red ball leaves Liverpool red faced!


So there I was watching Match Of The Day, when I witnessed one of the strangest goals in the Premier League match at The Stadium Of Light between Sunderland and Liverpool. A fifth minute strike which can only be described as a 'freak', hit a beach ball, that ironically a Liverpool fan had thrown onto the pitch. In doing this the ball left Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina totally flat footed and somewhat confused as he watched the ball (the real one) hit the back of the net.


At the time there did not seem to be much complaint or controversy about the goal, however post match interviews with referees and players seemed to change this. I share Darren Bent's opinion that if the ball was on the edge of Reina's six yard box, and was bothering him that much then he should have moved it himself, which he failed to do. However, former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher, believes the referee should have intervened to remove the beach ball, or instead of allowing the goal, forced a drop ball.


The arguments over this matter will rage on for years to come, but the simple truth of the matter is that Liverpool quite frankly did not deserve anything out of the game anyway, so to have robbed Sunderland of a historic win for something as bizarre as this, would have been a huge injustice. Even Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez believed 'he could have no complaints about the result'.

2 comments:

  1. As a supporter of a top-4 club, it's always nice to see Liverpool drop points (hardly a suprise considering the "two man team" were missing Gerrard and Torres) and you're right in saying they didn't deserve anything from the game. I even thought of doing a blog on it myself! ('Balloon causes Liverpool's title dream to pop' perhaps, or 'Liverpool's title dreams up in the air')

    However, the laws of the game state that the referee should have NOT awarded the goal as the beach ball/balloon counts as an "outside interference" - Either way mate, hilarious to see! And also, I think a complete first in the 12 years I've been watching Premiership football! lol :)

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  2. The 'beach' sets have completly sold out online, aparently other clubs supporters are buying the balls to throw on the pitch in future games...shocking!

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