A Virtual Purge

By: Martha | September 17th, 2008

Look at that face — it’s positively awash with guilt.

I thought I was over the Lyon match, but I just watched the Inside documentary at ogcnice.tv and am once again deeply depressed, albeit what I suspect is a very girly way — the rage is gone, and now I’m just really, really sad for all of them, especially poor Letizi. What a nightmarish thing to stomach, especially when you’re totally impotent to right such an obvious wrong — one that, to make matters worse, has been officially acknowledged. Jesus.

There’s a well-established history of referee corruption in Italy but now, generally, where awful calls are made in favor of the big clubs, it’s credited to a “psychosis” whereby, summarized very simplistically, officials bow to an internalized belief that the big clubs are probably better anyway, and deserve the benefit of the doubt. I’m assuming a variation on that is what happened on Saturday, but I gotta say it doesn’t make it any easier to take, particularly with all of France — press and otherwise — seemingly believing Lyon are routinely favorite by officials. (Take out “Lyon” and replace it with either “Inter” or “Juve,” and you’ve got the subject of at least a dozen articles published each Serie A season.)

And Aulas‘ self-righteous objection to L’Equipe’s description of the match as “stolen” would be hilarious if it wasn’t so offensive. When that sort of things happens to your advantage, you keep your mouth shut and your head down, and just be thankful, particularly when your player essentially admitted to diving for the free kick that was the first goal.

Antonetti raised the issue of replays, which is getting some play — including in the national assembly — because of the multiple acknowledged errors last weekend, but one imagines that, like it always does, the talk will die down once there are a few fairly clean rounds. He and Cohen both said after the match that it’s getting hard to believe in the game anymore, but the reality of life is that shit happens. It’s just a pity that, in football, seems to happen to the small clubs more often.

*deep breath*

Ok, I’m done. Not talking about it anymore. Really. Moving on.