The Top 5 Controversies Of The Soccer World Cup

by | Jun 12, 2014 | Entertainment

What’s a World Cup without controversies? This is our pick of the best of the bunch.

The Hand Of God

The 1986 quarterfinals between Argentina and England where world class player, Diego Maradona scored the winning goal with a little help from his hand knocking out England from the tournament.

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The Head-Butt Heard Around The World

Zidane was having a tournament of his life and single handedly put France though to the finals against Italy in 2006. After opening the scoring the man went from hero to zero when he was given his marching orders late into extra time after head-butting Marco Metrazzi. France went on to lose it in penalties.

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Can You Count Cards?

One of the greatest English referees, Graham Poll, had a massive blunder during the 2002 World Cup when he took charge of the Australia vs. Croatia game. He issued Josip Simunic of Croatia three yellow cards, forgetting to send him off on the second, but after issuing the third sent him packing to the stands. Third time is the charm.

Fakers

Brazilian star Rivaldo is a great player but even sometimes the greats make poor decisions. During an intense game against Turkey in the 2002 World Cup Rivaldo was poised to take a corner kick. The Turkish player kicked the ball hard at him that sequentially hit Rivaldo on the arm close to his knee. The star made a meal of it and went down dramatically holding his head and face. The Turk got sent off for it. Football shouldn’t be a soap opera.

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The Second Hand Of God

During the 2010 World Cup quarterfinals where Uruguay played Ghana, Luis Suarez made headlines. The teams went into extra time deadlocked at one all. The last two minutes Ghana could have won, making them the first African team to reach the semis, but after a box scramble as the ball seemed destined to go in for Ghana, Suarez used a Maradona trick by handling the ball denying Ghana victory. He was sent off and Ghana awarded the penalty but missed it. With that miss cameras caught the sulking Suarez suddenly start celebrating like a mad man on the sidelines like he scored a winner. Ghana lost on penalties after that and all hopes were ended. They say cheaters never prosper but this was not the case that day.

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