Thursday, June 29, 2006

Yellow peril

With one eye beyond this weekends quarter-finals, the semi-finals and final itself being to loom large and with the second round dominated by controversial refereeing decisions there are several players who will be a little nervous as they step onto the pitch this weekend.

Those players on a yellow card will know that just one more indiscretion could put them out of a crucial semi-final or potentially the game of their lives.

Taking a look at the list, there are plenty of big name players currently on a yellow card:

Germany:
Torsten Frings

Argentina:
Gabriel Heinze
Juan Pablo Sorin

Brazil:
Juan
Adriano

France:
Franck Ribery
Zinedine Zidane
Patrick Vieira

Portugal:
Petit
Maniche
Nuno Valente
Ricardo
Luis Figo

England:
Paul Robinson
John Terry
Jamie Carragher

Italy:
Fabio Grosso
Gianluca Zambrotta
Rino Gattuso

Ukraine:
none


With the poor (and generally card happy) refereeing seen in the latter games of the group stages and then during the second round, there are plenty more players who could pick up a yellow card this weekend or add to their yellow already.

One thing I'm sure that no-one wants to see regardless of who makes it to the final is a game where three, four or five of the top players are sat on the sidelines as spectators due to poor refereeing decisions along the way.

Interestingly though, do you think David James may have one eye on the fact that Paul Robinson is currently sat on a yellow card?

vote it up!

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