Fight! Fight! Fight!

According to Soccernet, I missed watching one hell of a match last night. Palmeiras and Argentinos Juniors met in the quarterfinals of the Copa Sudamericana and boy howdy, was it great. Tight match, 2 red cards, and a fight afterwards. If only there were video. . . .

Of course, in the modern intertubed world, there is always video. Inside, I have posted not one but two of these wonders.


These are the longer highlights. Maybe you can guess why Palmeiras might have been a little angry at the end of the match. That first highlight is in the 17th minute. Palmeiras, in the green, look to have scored on a free kick. Not so, says the ref, who waved it off. Too bad for him, the ball was over the line. He will, at least, have plenty of time left in the game to redeem himself.

A couple of nice saves follow on the video, up to the 1:25 mark. Here, Palmeiras are rewarded with a PK, and it is not even a make-up call. However, even though a player is allowed to feint on a PK, if the ref feels it is unsporting, as last night's ref did here, it is a yellow card and the kick is retaken. Predictably, the second attempt was saved. It would seem that the ref has no qualms about the keeper taking a few steps off the line, though.

Shortly after, Argentinos take the lead after a nice bit of control and a volley from the top of the box. Escudero was the goal scorer. Full points to him for his climb-the-bulldozer-inexplicably-just-off-the-pitch goal celebration.

The final two highlights show Argentinos players making meals out of overzealous and pissed-off challenges from Palmeiras players. First, a player gets a second yellow for pushing his opponent after the Argentinos player kicked the ball away. While the push could have knocked over my 90-year old neighbor, it should no have hurt the Argentine. Similarly, the second red card looked worse at first blush than it did on replay. On replay, there was very little contact, and lots of falling after. There was intent there, sure, but the contact missed

The Soccernet article then mentions that there was a fight after the match between the two sides. I'm afraid this was, at best, a Jayson Blair level fabrication. I guess the internet equivalent would be Diggers submitting thoroughly misleading headlines in order to get Dugg. The video below shows what happened.

There was some Sharks v. Jets squaring up without the finger snaps, and a rugby scrum nearly happened, but in the end nothing really happened. The most menacing thing I saw was one guy took off his shirt with purpose. Thanks, Soccernet, for proving Georger right as to the level of your coverage.

2nd video cut down by splicd. If that service fails, the full youtube is here.